


Times Have Changed

by UmiTheUmbreon



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pokemon
Genre: Action, Action/Adventure, Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Corruption, Developing Relationship, Dialogue Heavy, Escape, Exploration, F/M, Falling In Love, Forbidden Love, Future, Gun Violence, Human/Pokemon Relationship(s), Kissing, Love Confessions, Lycanroc - Freeform, Original Character(s), Plot Twists, Pokemon Fanfiction, Romance, Survival, Talking Animals, Time Travel, Travel, Vaporeon - Freeform, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-09-29 07:51:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 48
Words: 57,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17199524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UmiTheUmbreon/pseuds/UmiTheUmbreon
Summary: In the current year of 2025, time travel is used both professionally and recreationally. A midday Lycanroc named Lucc travels through time with his trainer to find valuables in future eras. While on one of his scouting missions he becomes attached to a female Vaporeon from a future era which is forbidden and can easily get him and his trainer into deep trouble.





	1. Forbidden Interactions

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first story on here, I'll try my best to make it perfect, but forgive possible plotholes and grammatical/spelling errors. Thank you :3

It was the year 3065 at the time, the ability to time travel had been mastered completely in the year 2023. It was used by a trusted select few that knew how to use it intelligently and safely in every manner - otherwise time could be ruptured or altered by anyone if it was allowed to be used freely. A midday Lycanroc that went by the name Lucc (pronounced Luke) stepped out of a large, metal box-like structure that was square in shape. "Go ahead and scout the area Lucc. I'll watch from your point of view, remember to collect uncommon and rare valuables only." His trainer reminded him and hung a small, tight-fitted gray cloth pouch over his shoulder and neck area.

Lucc had a nano camera built into his right eye so that his trainer could see whatever he saw, though there wasn't yet any audio transfer. Lucc walked across the wasteland's ground. Red, desert-like terrain. The air gritty and polluted with grains of sand, there were a few buildings that he'd spotted in the distance. Most were rubble but maybe he could find some valuables over in that area. Their future was obviously very bleak, Lucc had seen a lot of deterioration in the near future through the traveling that him and his trainer had done. It scared him to a degree, to know that all life would be nearly extinct in the future. Once he'd reached the group of buildings, Lucc looked around at what was only a horizon of sand and apparent emptiness stretching infinitely across the land, he wondered how it ended up like this.

Lucc used one of the many features that the nanotechnology in his eye gave him. It let him scope out valuable metallic material even through solid surfaces, in fact, it had already begun scanning something in front of him. With perked ears, he headed towards what the red target was locked onto and dug through some loose debris next to one of the buildings to reveal a few small shadow crystals. They shone a dark purple, pretty, but fairly common. Lucc sighed and began heading over to other building but suddenly froze up as he heard movement coming from inside of the only fully standing building nearby. He crouched down a bit, now in a stance of attack as he waited for whatever was making the ruckus to come out. Which could be literally anything, he was in year 3065after all. A quick few moments had passed until a blue colored figure fell into Lucc's view, he was shocked by what he saw.

A Vaporeon. Out here? "What the…" Lucc whispered to himself under his breath, not noticing that his stance had involuntarily gone back to his usual one of standing. Upon seeing Lucc, the Vaporeon took a step back. It was obviously frightened, and he didn't blame her. "You don't have to be scared. I won't hurt you, my name's Lucc!" He attempted to console it, seeing that the Vaporeon posed no threat as far as he could tell. It didn't respond though, a look of both interest and fear present in its eyes. "I'm not from here, I live in the year 2025. Please don't be afraid! I'm only here for valuables." Lucc would never harm anyone unless he had to anyway, especially not a fellow Pokémon. After their stare-off had lasted for a few more moments, the Vaporeon finally gathered up enough courage to speak.

"M-My name is Aura, what do you mean you live in 2025?" Lucc now assumed that she was female by the feminine pitch in her voice. She closely watched the Lycanroc as if he would jump at her at any given moment.

"Well...it's a lot to explain, look...I'll just quit being a bother. I'm intruding in your...era after all." Lucc began to walk over to the next building to search for anything of value that they could find and sell back home.

"W-Wait! You're just gonna leave?...You have to tell me...tell me you are what I think you are." Aura kept her distance, but had slightly followed after Lucc as he walked off.

"Well, what do you think I am?" He replied and looked back at her. Lucc wanted to leave, he knew his trainer would be upset with him for interacting with anything living from a different era since they had to be painfully cautious while time traveling, but he found it interesting to do so. Interacting with future beings was slightly less dangerous than interacting with those from the past anyway.

"Did you use time to travel here?" Aura awaited a response almost desperately.

"Sure…" Lucc didn't want to tell her too much, if he did anything to alter time in any way and it was found out, his trainer would get into unimaginable amounts of trouble.

"It's been a while since I've spoken to anyone. The only company I get is the few that I have to hide or run from. A bunch of worthless poachers." Aura sighed. She had to live her life in constant fear but knew how to survive.

"Lucc...leave." His trainer was standing in front of the monitor that let him watch Lucc, his heart sank when he saw him interacting with that Vaporeon.

"What happened here? All of this sand." He figured he may as well ask the Vaporeon a simple question, no harm in that right?

"A brutal sandstorm that lasted for about two years, I was separated from my family while we...tried to fight through it. I found a small bunker under that building I came out of and was able to live there until the storm subsided. Kanto is buried under all of this sand, but these buildings were at a high enough altitude to survive it and so was I." Lucc felt horrible for her, she'd gone through a lot, lost a lot and was now alone. He wished that he could help her, but he couldn't. It was risky enough interacting with her this much in the first place.

"I'm sorry about what happened to you Aura, and I wish I could stay and talk to you more but I think I should get going now." He lightly grinned and saw her expression change, it was now that he realized she was a bit happier while talking to him.

"Hm...wait a minute!" Aura told him, she quickly padded back into the building behind her and disappeared into it, she returned back in just a few minutes with something dark in her mouth. Aura softly set it down in front of Lucc's paws, now being able to study it closely, he realized that they were three medium-sized black ruby shards. They easily go for about $1,000 each back home. His eyes widened.

"Where'd you find these?" It was definitely an amazing find, they were beyond rare.

"I just explore and happen to find things while I'm out sometimes, go ahead and take them." She offered and pushed the shards closer to him with her paw.

"You sure? You don't need them at all?" He was grateful for this, it would definitely please his trainer. Aura shook her head a few times and grinned warmly.

"Not at all, I'm sure I'll find more some other time!" She assured Lucc and watched as he picked up the shards and gently stuffed them into his pouch with his mouth.

"Thanks a lot Aura!" Lucc needed to start making his way back to the pod with his trainer, but had no idea how to tell her, he enjoyed her company. There weren't many other Pokémon to talk to back home other than his close friend friend Silva. "I have to go now Aura, the sun is setting so I should return before dark." Lucc looked up at the orange colored sunset and sat down for a moment.

"Oh...right. Well good luck Lucc!" Some disappointment was heard in her voice, she'd completely forgotten about his situation.

"Bye! It was nice meeting you Aura." It was a bit hard for him to leave but there was no way he could stay. Lucc now began his journey back to the pod.

"Will...I ever see you again Lucc?" The question stopped Lucc as he was walking away, he turned his head in order to see her behind him and grinned.

"Maybe..."


	2. Home, Sweet Home

Aura stayed silent after Lucc's response, she watched him as he slowly fell out of her vision. 'Maybe" She replayed his words in her head, just hoping that he would actually consider it. Aura was heavily interested in him, the year that he came from and everything else about him.

Lucc had made it back to the pod and had to wait until his trainer opened the door, he stepped inside and his trainer closed the door behind him while letting out a soft sigh from under his compact gas mask and heavy white outfit that he wore to protect himself from the air in futuristic eras. Humans were more prone to certain deadly illnesses that were existent in the future than pokémon would be.

"Lucc, you know you aren't supposed to talk to anyone from any era other than our own! You could get me killed. I trust you to do right by me on these missions, come on…" He sighed. "I can't be too mad at you though since you didget some ruby shards out of it." His trainer leaned down and took the pouch from off of Lucc. "We just need to flash freeze these now so that they don't cease to exist while we go back to 2025. That would be bad." Lucc's trainer placed the shards into a container that was attached to the pod and closed it while pressing the green button next to it. A bright flash from inside of the container caused him to wince and look away before the process was complete.

"All done. You did good Lucc. Time to go home." A cold mist surrounded the shards from being flash frozen as Lucc's trainer opened the container and dropped the shards back into the pouch. Afterwards, he went over to the monitor and typed 2025 onto the screen using an orange holographic keyboard that was on the wall next to it and pushed two small levers forward that were on the wall under the monitor. Once that was over with he made sure that the door was properly locked for safety reasons. The pod then began to shake, heavily at first but it toned down to a steadier and lighter vibration. Who knew what went on outside of that door during the travel sequence, but everyone was told never to open it during mid-travel. Five minutes later, the pod was now at a standstill.

Lucc sighed in relief now that he was back home, something inside of him had always felt uneasy whenever he was away. Maybe it was the fact that he could possibly get stuck in an era he knew nothing about if the pod were to fail while he was in the future or past.

"Alright, go rest buddy. You deserve it." His trainer opened the pod's door and they both stepped out onto the sidewalk below them. The machine itself didn't belong to them so whenever Lucc and his trainer were done with their work it had to be called in and picked up, which is what his trainer had done before entering his and Lucc's house. He'd get something done with the rubies later.

Lucc didn't follow after his trainer though, the Vaporeon that he'd met made him feel lonely. He needed to go see Silva, so he began the walk to her trainer's house which was a few blocks down the road from his. They lived in a small town on an island in Alola, populated with houses, pokémon and people. It was pretty ordinary other than the fact that the neighborhood seemed worn out, there wasn't anymore upkeep since the world was slowly falling under. At least Lucc knew how the future would turn out, though he wished he didn't. It made it hard for him to enjoy life sometimes.

The backdoor was never locked at Silva's house so Lucc took that entrance once he arrived and walked over to the living room. "Silva!" He called for her and waited for a few seconds. He was about to shout her name out again but she appeared from down the hallway, half asleep and looking rather irritated.

"I was sleeping Lucc!" She smacked his front left leg with one of her ribbons.

"Ah! Sorry! I just wanted to see you." Lucc lifted his paw for a moment in reaction and held back a grin.

"Whatever, come on." Silva yawned and rubbed her eyes with her ribbons as she walked back into her trainer's room. She had her own small bed by the corner of the left wall you'd see as soon as you were to walk into the room. Her bed was neatly covered with a white blanket. Silva's trainer used to make good money before the economic downfall began to happen a few months back, she was currently unemployed as a result. Silva hopped up onto her bed and stretched out her front paws before laying down on her stomach, Lucc following after her and sitting up in front of her at a bit of a distance.

"Came here to brag about more of your time traveling adventures?" Silva looked up at him and tucked her left paw under her chest.

"There's nothing to brag about Silva." Her and her trainer weren't a part of the few that could use the pods so Silva hadn't ever experienced it. If she were being honest with herself, it even had her feeling slightly jealous sometimes.

"Well I've always been curious about it, I want to try it one day." She sighed and rolled over onto her back to stretch some more.

"No you don't..." 'Trust me' he thought to himself.

Silva sat up after a few moments, deciding not to question what he said. She didn't know much about it other than stories that he told her anyway.

"I was here to tell you about this...Vaporeon I met on my recent scouting trip named Aura. She lives in the year 3065." Lucc could tell Silva anything, he trusted her with his life.

"I thought you couldn't interact with anyone from other eras?" She remembered how he told her about possibly altering time and that doing so was illegal.

"You can't, that's the problem. I want to see her again but I don't know how I would or if it's worth it." Lucc's expression changed to that of a defeated one just by talking about it.

"Aww Luccy, I'm sure you could see her again one day if you thought of something." Silva wasn't sure how to help much in this situation so she took a few steps towards him, embraced his sides with her ribbons and pressed her cheek against his while nuzzling him a few times.

"Thanks…" Lucc mumbled and leaned against Silva, he wasn't much of a cuddly type, but he couldn't deny that he needed it right now. "Silva, do you mind if I stay here for the night?" He pulled his face away from her cheek in order to look at her.

"Of course you can, I'm here for you. Cutie." She giggled and got off of the bed.

"C-Cutie?" A light blush grew across Lucc's cheeks without him realizing it.

"I'm just messin with ya, come on. I'll get you something to eat." Lucc followed behind, the Vaporeon stuck in his head as if she were an addiction. He didn't have any way to see her unless his trainer went back to her era, but he had no real reason to do so. Maybe he'd stop thinking about her tonight.


	3. We Have to Go Back

Lucc opened his eyes to a ray of sunlight hitting his face, he winced and lifted his head up to get away from it, shortly after he felt warmth near his lower body, Silva was asleep, curled up right next to him. She was a good friend, the best he had.

Lucc sighed to himself, knowing that he had to head back to his trainer. He had an okay relationship with him, however there wasn't much of a mutual bond between them. Most of the time it felt like they were only working together, it's why Lucc went over to Silva's often instead of his own home. He just didn't feel as comfortable around his trainer like he did with Silva. Lucc silently got down from her bed without waking her up, no sign of Silva's trainer around the house oddly enough. He could only hope that she was okay and exited through the backdoor as he made his way back home.

Lucc silently entered his home through the "doggy door" that his trainer had set up for him once he got there and overheard two voices in the living room, one of them belonging to his trainer. Lucc quickly hugged the wall that was near the entrance to the living room with his body so he wasn't seen and perked his ears up to listen to the ongoing conversation.

"And you said your name is Ryan Dash, correct?" Lucc quickly peeked around the corner out of curiosity and saw his trainer and another man sitting at the table in the dining room which was right next to the living room, his trainer sitting across from him. Lucc couldn't see anything other than his back so he couldn't make him out other than the fact he wore a tuxedo-like suit.

"Yes, that's right." Ryan replied and pushed his black hair back off of his slightly tan-colored face with his hand, he tried his best not to seem nervous. Sitting across from him at their small table was one of who worked at the corporation that owned and allowed Ryan to use their pods. His skin fair and his short blonde hair slicked back. A typical wealthy businessman appearance.

"You can call me Levaughn. I'm here to speak with you about the shards you've acquired yesterday." A dead silence fell over the room. Why? Because Ryan hadn't told anyone about those shards yet, in fact, they were still inside of the pouch. "You see Ryan, when you flash freeze any item...all of the data is processed and sent directly to us so that we can then thoroughly study it. We don't typically go after what our users find because the data we receive lets us re-create the valuables, but...black rubies are far more valuable to us than you could ever imagine, and they contain a component that unfortunately won't allow us make any copies. What I ask of you is that you turn in the shards to me that you've obtained yesterday and tell me the exact year that you found them in. It's all very beneficial to our research." Levaughn seemed friendly about this, at first anyway. Of course, Ryan didn't want to hand over what him and Lucc had found but there really wasn't much of a choice being given to him. He didn't want to lose the ability to use the time pods either so his best bet was to comply.

"Sure, and I found them in the year 3065." Ryan reached down into his left pocket and took out the bundled up pouch.

"I appreciate how easy-going you are compared to the problems we run into with some other users." Levaughn took the pouch and emptied it into his hand, sure enough, these rubies were exactly what they needed. "I have just one more question...is there a way for you to find more in that era?" He asked and tossed the empty pouch back to Ryan.

"I mean...I could try." Lucc had gotten a few from that Vaporeon on their last trip, and as risky as that was. It may have to be done again. "Good. I'll reward you generously if you happen to find any, see you around Ryan." Levaughn gave Ryan his business card and exited his small white house, fortunately he didn't seen Lucc on the way out. "Were you standing here this entire time Lucc?" Ryan knelt down and lightly patted his head. "Well, that means you heard everything then. We need to return to the same era...you got those shards from that Vaporeon right? Maybe you can see if she has more. Risky or not, we need to get this done and just stay quiet about it. Pod is getting dropped off tonight, that's when we'll head back out." His trainer explained to him.

Lucc hoped that the reward was money, he needed a nano camera upgrade. The one he had built in now was an outdated version so it lacked many convenient features. What was mostly on his mind at the moment was how happy he was to be going back to Aura's era, and since his trainer was allowing it he could possibly learn a lot more about her. He felt a hint of nervousness as well since this was still a risk, hopefully it played out well tonight.


	4. Across the Wasteland

The daylight faded away quickly, Lucc had napped until it was evening and Ryan had to wake him up. "C'mon, it's dark out."

He watched Lucc sit up and stretch out his front paws and hind legs out, Lucc was ready to do this. He knew that caution was still needed while doing something so risky but that was beside the point. Lucc just wanted to see her again. He wanted to see Aura.

While endlessly thinking about her, Ryan and Lucc headed out to the pod which had been recently placed in their front yard and entered it.

"There's no turning back now Lucc, we really shouldn't have gotten those rubies." Ryan sighed and flipped the levers once he typed 3065 into the monitor.

Heavy vibrations turned steady as the travel sequence played through, next thing you know they were back in futuristic Kanto a few minutes later. Ryan made sure Lucc's nano camera was fully operational before letting him out of the pod. "Try to be quick buddy, fit as many as you find into that pouch." He closed the door and secured it.

Lucc turned his head to look at that sandy horizon after his trainer closed the door. It didn't take long to spot the group of buildings that he was at last time, he even remembered which building Aura called home. Lucc began his journey, his paws padding through the near silky textured sand while on his way. He arrived back at the buildings shortly, having no real idea where Aura would be at the time. She could be out exploring or inside of the bunker, Lucc decided that he should check her living space first and headed into the standing building. The bunker lid was right under him since he'd taken about 15 steps inside of the building.

"Hm." A knock should do to get her attention if she was in there, so he stamped his right paw against the metallic lid a few times and in a few moments heard some creaking under him which told him to quickly move from on top of it. Aura popped out from under it after it opened upward and grinned at him.

"Lucc! I saw you through the camera, I'm glad you came back. Come in!" She headed back down just as quickly as she came up, Lucc following after her as it closed behind him.

It wasn't too spacious inside. A bed, small kitchen, bathroom and a small monitor that let you see everything that was immediately outside of the bunker.

"I can't do much to keep it maintained in here so I just make sure not to mess anything up in the first place! What made you come back Lucc?" Aura's eyes lit up as she gazed upon the Lycanroc in front of her, he had a good build and seemed modest and serious in personality, she was fond of it.

"Well, I did kind of say I was coming back. I was interested in you. I want to know more about you..." Lucc began but remembered his primary mission and cut himself short, he couldn't stray off or play games.

"But...first, I need to let you know something else. My trainer and I are in trouble." He sighed and sat down on the wooden floor.

"Oh no...for what? Does it have something to do with me?" Aura couldn't think of what it was, she hadn't done anything wrong in her mind but some anxiety was felt anyway.

"Not directly, it's about those rubies you had. If I can't find more, who knows what'll happen to us." He didn't want to blatantly ask Aura for more rubies so he hinted at it.

"That's terrible, if I had more in my possession I'd give them to you." Aura replied, those rubies were definitely a rare find.

"So you don't know where any are? I'm sorry to be so pushy about this Aura but this is serious and you're the only one that can help." Lucc didn't want their second time meeting each other to go this route, he hoped that she wouldn't like him any less.

"Mm...well we could check back where I originally found them, it's a long walk though." Of course, Lucc accepted without hesitation.

They exited the safety of the bunker and traveled through the field of sand for miles before a few mountains covered by fog were visible in the far distance. "There. It'll take an hour or so." Aura warned.

"That's okay, this needs to be done." Dry air blew across the dunes, nothing but the mountains could be seen all around. It was an almost helpless feeling.

Aura was right, it took a long hour and a half for them to reach the mountains. Lucc's paws were beyond tired but just beneath the mountains held a misty rainforest so it was cooler in temperature. "Why isn't all of this covered in sand?" Not one grain was present, he definitely wasn't complaining but it did seem pretty odd.

"As far as I know these mountains appeared some time after the storm." Aura replied, she sounded dead serious about it too.

"Huh? After? That doesn't make sense!" His head tilted to the right slightly in obvious confusion as Aura led through the forest and up the mountain.

"I know, I don't understand it either. Maybe I will one day." Aura stopped at the entrance of a deep and dark cavern while leading.

"You went in there? You have to be crazy Aura." Lucc stared into the cave and couldn't see a thing. On top of that, the rubies were black and would likely be difficult to see.

"Well, when you lose your entire family to a brutal and never ending sandstorm. You tend not to care anymore." She looked back at Lucc and disappeared into the cavern in front of them.

"H-Hey, wait Aura!"


	5. Forest of Many Secrets

Ryan lost the stream that enabled him to see through Lucc's view, there had to be another wireless signal purposely interfering with his. "Huh, strange." He had no idea who or what was occupying this era that could be sending the signal but it was crucial that he watched through Lucc so Ryan had to find it.

Meanwhile, both Aura and Lucc had traveled at least halfway through the tight walled cavern. Lucc could barely see in front of him, he had to trust that Aura would keep them both safe.

"How deep do we have to go?" Lucc asked as he trotted behind her.

"Deep. I know where we're going, I use my tail to feel along the wall's pattern to know how close we are. Just relax." Aura reassured him and continued dragging her tail across the wall as they walked, she found it cute that he was nervous but didn't blame him for it. "Down here, it should take us right to where they're created. Don't give it any second thought." Aura warned him since they were approaching a steep downhill slope. She knew they were since she felt the sudden ridging in the caverns walls with her tail.

"What do you mean?" Lucc had stood right before the slope and only stopped because of what Aura had said. Fortunately, it worked out for her since he was obviously giving it a second thought.

She quietly went behind him and grinned. "Forgive me for this Lucc." He had no time to respond or even think on what she'd said since he was suddenly shoved forward. Aura had nudged his rear with her side and giggled as he slipped forward and gasped out of shock. She slid down after him, it took roughly 15 seconds before she reached the bottom.

Yep, it was just as she remembered it. A small cavern that was closed off from every side, as if it were a medium sized room, slightly rounded in shape. The entire cavern glowed a dull pink from the crystal shards that grew from the walls.

Lucc was in awe at the sight, he completely forgot about being upset with Aura. "This is...unreal." He wanted to take all of it, what was in these walls had to be worth everything. There was a small watering hole containing a fizzy liquid which was deep blue in color that Lucc walked over to by the exit of the slope they had just slid down.

"Don't...go near that. It's acid." Aura told him quickly and grinned as she sat down.

"Aura, this place is beautiful but how can it exist?" Lucc was still stuck in a state of disbelief.

"I know just as much about it as you do, this entire mountain and forest appeared here sometime after the storm. It could have been artificially made for all I know. I just found it recently." It was mysterious for sure, vibrant and full of secrets, starting with this one.

Ryan was beginning to worry about Lucc, he used his wiretracker, rectangular in shape and gray in color with the screen of a calculator to pinpoint every signal within a 10 mile radius. It picked up one other unkown signal besides his. His hands shook as he held it and his heart raced. The other signal was sourced just a few feet away from the pod. A black dot slowly blinked next to his on the screen.

"I found the rubies over here last time." Aura padded over to the other side of the cave while Lucc followed over to the corner as well. There were black rubies stuck to the bottomside of the rocky walls, about five of them.

"They seem to just grow out of the walls somehow…" Lucc stared down at the wall and felt some unease, the concept was just so odd to him. He pawed at them until they fell off the wall and proceeded to place them in his gray pouch.

"Done here?" Aura nudged under his chin with her head and grinned. She only did that to feel his soft fur but he wouldn't know that.

"Mhm, thanks a lot Aura. Let's get you back home."


	6. Finally

Lucc and Aura had exited the cavern by taking a hidden underground exit from the floor of the cavern. They were now backtracking in order to exit the rainforest.

"Aura, how is it? Having to spend your days with no one to talk to. It has to get lonely sometimes." Lucc felt bad of course so he enjoyed giving her his company while he was here with her.

"It does, I just try to make the best of it I guess…" It only pushed her into a depressive state the more she thought about it, Aura had truly been alone for a long time. She felt a bit of life spark inside of her while Lucc was around and they barely even knew each other. The basic interaction was enough to cause it since she'd been without it for a long time.

Ryan had set his tracking device down, unsure of how to assess the situation. He was unarmed and had no idea who or what was outside of the pod, he walked over to the door after equipping his protective outfit and exhaled deeply. He had no choice but to face whatever it was.

Now having made their way out of the forest, Lucc and Aura began walking side by side through the sand. It had gotten significantly darker now that they were able to be see the sky without any trees blocking their view.

"Woah..." Across the horizon Lucc caught a glimpse of a huge tornado, slim and tall with an active thunderstorm around it. Whenever lightning struck, it lit up the night sky and gave him another short look at it, it looked absolutely terrifying.

"Tornadoes form out here sometimes, that one's really far away, luckily, but a few have gotten a bit too close. It's why those other two buildings are rubble where I live." She explained and stayed close to Lucc as they traveled, Aura felt protected with him by her side.

"The future eras do hold a lot of extreme weather conditions...I'm glad you know how to stay safe." Lucc grinned and leaned down slightly to nudge her cheek with his.

The door to the pod slowly opened, Ryan had gone through with his plan already. It was stupid, but it was the only thing he could think of that would solve this problem quickly. He had a tire iron in his right hand that he found in the pod for some protection and peeked out of the door. It was quiet, only the empty sound of wind could be heard. Ryan stepped out of the pod and onto the sand cautiously, he walked around it to find any device that could be causing interference. He spotted something in the sand after scanning the ground with his eyes and picked it up. A small, plastic black box, he slammed it against the durable outer shell of the pod until it broke. Someone had to have placed it there, but no seemed to be around. Ryan stepped back inside and closed the door behind him, reset the monitor, and could only wait and hope for the stream to return.

"Well, I only really have to worry about poachers when it's late at night...most of the time anyway, sometimes one or two may wander around outside during the day." Lucc and Aura had been conversing nearly the entire time they'd been walking, a few awkward silences every now and then, but they were warming up to each other for the most part.

"Why are they going after pokémon anyway?" Lucc replied with a question.

"The fur or skin on any pokémon holds a ton of value now, and not many are even left to poach because of how many they slaughter. They're just getting more desperate for it; value is rising as the numbers drop." She sighed sadly, knowing that she could never help her own species and that they were near extinction.

"That's terrible...I'd show them how it feels to be poached and skinned if I saw any of em'." He let out a low, playful growl.

"I didn't need to picture that." Aura giggled a bit, which Lucc found pretty adorable. He saw the grouped buildings across the horizon and perked his ears once he did, his paws and legs were beyond tired; he needed to rest.

The stream finally came back online for Ryan, he was lost since he had no clue what had been happening while it was offline, but they seemed to be walking back to the nearby buildings. Hopefully Lucc had what they needed. Ryan sighed and sat down on the floor with his eyes closed. What kind of life was this? He was barely 19 years old and was already in some kind of pressured deal with a time machine company, not the ideal life he wanted, but he brought it upon himself when he accepted the job in the first place. I mean...who wouldn't accept an experimental job that lets you travel through time itself? There's just always a catch - there's always a catch.

Once back inside of Aura's small bunker, Lucc almost immediately collapsed onto the floor. "I'll go soon, I just want to rest for a few minutes." He exhaled in relief, the mission had finally been accomplished.

"Back home? You know...you aren't a bother or anything close to it Lucc, I like you here." Aura tried to make that sound anything but awkward, but she thought she failed in that aspect.

"I enjoy being around you too. It's so amazing...we're from two different time periods, and the fact that we're even talking to each other just makes it that much better." Lucc looked down at the floor after he said this and sighed. He had to get going, it was only going to get darker outside as time passed, and he needed to get these rubies to his trainer.

"Aura, I'm sorry again, but I've gotta get going. It's important that I get this job done." He sat up and stretched out a little.

"No, don't be sorry. I get it, go on. It was great to meet you again Lucc." Aura replied, masking the sadness that she felt inside as she watched him head to the exit.

"Thank you Aura, for everything. If I don't ever get to see you again, know that I'll remember and cherish you in my heart...well, bye now!"

She watched Lucc disappear up out of the hatch then hopped into her bed. She laid down on her side, cozy, but lonely. All she heard was silence. That eerie silence that she heard all night, it aggravated her and made sleeping difficult. Lucc's voice and presence alone gave the room some life - and now he was gone. Just like that. She should've said more to him, but either way he had more important things to do.

If there was a next time...well, maybe next time.


	7. Tragedy Back Home

Since he'd traveled this route before, it wasn't difficult for Lucc to make his way back to the pod even while it was dark. The door opened for him quickly since Ryan saw through the monitor that Lucc had returned.

"There you are, glad you're okay bud." Ryan grinned and closed the door behind Lucc once he was inside. He took the pouch off of his body and checked the contents inside.

"You did it Lucc, I knew you could. It had to be a lot of work for you so rest well tonight." He told him while flash freezing the rubies.

They went back home after that, back to their era. The pod was left out in the front yard as usual, Ryan headed inside with the pouch and told Lucc to come in whenever he felt like doing so. He would, Lucc was exhausted from his recent journey but he still wanted to enjoy the air and ponder on thoughts for a while so he sat on the sidewalk in front of his house.

He saw something walking towards him from down the sidewalk out of the corner of his eye a few moments later and turned his head to the left to see what it was. Something white in color, as it got closer Lucc saw pink ribbons. It had to be Silva. Her colors didn't seem to hide her well in the dark. Lucc stood up and began walking towards her in order to meet her.

"Silva? You're out pretty late…" Lucc said once he got to her, he was able to study her face now that he was closer and saw the deep sadness and confused look in her eyes.

"My trainer...she was k-killed Lucc." Silva tried her best to refrain from sobbing anymore than she already had been and sat down in front of Lucc.

"What? Silva...how? By who?" Lucc remembered wondering where her trainer was before he left her house last morning.

"I don't...I don't know Lucc, I think it's being looked into but...they're gonna sell the house now, I have to find somewhere to stay." She wiped her eyes with her ribbons and looked down at the ground, not wanting Lucc to see her cry.

"Nonsense Silva, you can stay with me as long as you need to." He leaned forward and lightly nudged her shoulder with his cheek.

"Really? That would help a lot, especially for tonight."

"Of course Silva, that's what friends are for." Lucc took her inside and walked her to their couch in the living room, he had a pokébed by the door but he rarely used it. His trainer must have been asleep in his room that was down the hall.

"Just take the couch Silva, I'll use my bed for once." He told her as he curled up in it and sighed.

"You sure? I wouldn't want to intrude…" Silva replied and looked over at Lucc.

"Don't worry about it, you're fine. Just get some sleep." He replied and laid his head down on the edging of his bed. Silva hopped up onto the brown colored couch and curled up while on her stomach.

"Thank you Lucc." He was always a great friend to her and helped her through so much.

"Don't, it's what I'm here for." Lucc would have a hard time sleeping tonight, between Aura and now Silva. About 30 minutes had passed and Lucc was still awake, he wondered if Silva was able to sleep but that was answered for him once he heard her whimper a little to suppress her crying. She obviously wasn't doing too well, maybe she felt alone, Lucc couldn't have that.

He quickly got up from his own bed and silently jumped onto the couch with her. Lucc laid down by her left side and draped his right paw over her upper back, not a word was said but he felt her lean into him and the crying stopped shortly. It also helped him sleep too. Lucc couldn't help how sympathetic he was, this was his friend so of course it was different. In general, though. He was always willing to help someone before himself if they needed it. He couldn't change that about himself no matter how hard he tried. All Lucc could do was show it to the few that he could trust.

Once morning hit, at about 7AM, Lucc lifted his head slowly. Silva was still asleep under him, her face was buried in his neck before he'd raised his head. He always woke up before her.

'Poor Silva...I'll help you through this' He thought to himself while watching his friend sleep. Lucc wasn't really able to be alone last night since Silva showed up so he wanted to go to somewhere outside. He got up very slowly, Silva shifting in her sleep causing him to freeze. He finally was able to get off of the couch while leaving her sound asleep, Lucc was actually pretty impressed with himself for accomplishing this.

He exited through the front door and headed down the sidewalk, a bit of curiosity had also gotten to him so he wanted to see Silva's house in its current state. While watching his surroundings as he walked through the town, he shortly made it to her house. Just being in its presence made him feel somewhat uneasy but that was expected. The front yard was covered with caution tape meaning that it was probably under investigation but Lucc heard something coming from inside of the house.

'Just leave it alone Lucc...don't do this, this isn't what you came out here for.' He closed his eyes and tried getting himself to walk away, which worked. He was now heading away from Silva's house, it was probably a detective or something. A few steps later he stopped. No. It wasn't a detective. Not a police officer. The sound he heard was glass being broken. Silva was his friend, his best friend. This destroyed her and whoever was in that house may be her trainer's murderer, Lucc couldn't possibly ignore it. He turned around and went back to the house, slipping under the caution tape and heading to the backdoor.


	8. Breaking and Entering

Lucc felt instant regret upon slipping through that backdoor but he had to find out what was going on, he heard voices come from Silva's room and immediately crouched down to be as quiet as possible. His ears perked in order to listen in better.

"Well keep looking for it! It's in here and it's worth millions." What was? Lucc definitely wasn't going anywhere now.

"It could be in the walls."

"Start breaking through then, likely spots first." There seemed to be two of them, deep and almost unnatural voices. Lucc flinched once he began to hear loud banging noises, he had been hiding behind the couch in the living room which was close to Silva's room.

"Don't you think we should have gotten this info outta her before we killed her?"

"She had a tracker on her, I was sure of it. The company she worked with keeps close tabs on their workers. Now shut up and keep looking! The boys are waiting outside." Lucc was so caught up in listening that he didn't realize one of them had left the room.

"I'll check in other areas." He heard footsteps coming right towards him which caused him to panic and freeze up but Lucc could not let himself be found. He gave himself enough courage to move and silently trotted to the front end of the couch to hide under the brown coffee table that was in front of it. More banging, he must have been breaking through the walls in the kitchen now.

"Hey, I think I got something here!" Lucc needed to see what it was, he took a few slow steps to the end of the couch and peeked around the corner. He saw the other man walk into the kitchen as well.

"Haha! We got it, we'll make good cash off of this. Hopefully enough to justify the murder." As they left the house, Lucc caught a glimpse of what the guy was holding and nearly gasped out in shock. A pink, glowing crystal. It had to be the same crystal that was in the cave him and Aura were in but that cave had tons of them practically growing from out of the walls.

"Whew…" Lucc exhaled in relief once those two were out of the house and he walked out from his hiding spot. Too bad Lucc couldn't get a good look at them. He saw a small white card on the floor that must have been dropped from one of those strange men. It read R.R.A. in bold letters in the center and had Silva's trainer's full name at the bottom left corner. 'Melissa Kelton.' Lucc picked the card up in his mouth and exited through the back door. Maybe his trainer knew something about this situation, he wouldn't tell Silva about it just yet though.

Lucc found himself running back home, since he did he got there quickly and darted through his designated door. Luckily his trainer was already awake and was sitting on the couch next to Silva who was still asleep.

"Lucc, why is Silva in our house?" Ryan stood up once he saw him enter, Lucc quickly dropped the card on the floor in front of him and looked up at Ryan.

"And what's this?" He leaned down to pick it up and scanned the card with his green eyes.

"RRA...Isn't Melissa Silva's trainer? Lucc, why'd you bring me this?" In response, Lucc only hardened the stare that he was giving his trainer.

"Hm…" Ryan figured something was wrong from the look he was getting and got his laptop from the table, he gently sat on the couch with it so that he didn't wake Silva.

"She was...killed?" Ryan mumbled this to himself as he researched and glanced down at Silva. He understood now, he understood why she was here. Ryan didn't know Melissa that well but it was still tragic.

"Lucc where did you go this morning? I don't want you involved in...whatever this is." Ryan also looked up RRA.

"Regional Response Association. That's government stuff, who knows what she got herself into...Lucc, stay out of that please. It could potentially get us both into trouble." Ryan closed his laptop and was about to set the card down before something else caught his eye in the top right corner in small writing. 'Malstone'. That drew some more curiosity out of him, he re-opened the laptop and typed the name out in search.

"Wow, well this stuff is valuable. Since you were...wherever you were Lucc, do you know anything about this crystal? Malstone?" Lucc nodded quickly and perked his ears, he knew about it and exactly where to find it at that.

"Like what? Did you see it or something?" Lucc nodded again.

"That would be a nice find if we could get that in our hands...well your paws but...whatever." Ryan had been talking to no one at that point since Lucc had apparently gone off somewhere. He returned with the gray pouch that was used on their travel missions, it took Ryan a few moments before he began to realize what Lucc was getting at.

"Wait...is it in the era we last visited Lucc?" He asked and set the laptop next to him. Lucc slowly nodded once and set the empty pouch down.

"I must've missed it when the stream went offline...Lucc, you have to show it to me. We'll go back tomorrow alright? Too bad we can't travel to more than one location per era or else we could try arriving closer." Lucc was just happy he had another way of going back to see Aura, life was really seeming to work in his favor these days.

Ryan had gone out somewhere after that so Lucc had the whole day to himself now, only Silva was there with him and she'd just woken up.

"How long was I asleep?" Silva sat up on the couch and yawned.

"A while." He hopped up next to her, "I'm glad you got some sleep though. How are you feeling?"

"It's all mixed up, my emotions are everywhere. I just wish I knew more...for closure..." she sighed. Lucc wanted to tell her what he'd seen, he wanted to tell her everything but that wouldn't be good for her just yet.

"Oh, and thank you for hugging up to me last night Lucc. I needed it a lot. You're a great friend." Silva gave off a slight grin which came as a surprise to her. Through all of her pain she still found some comfort with Lucc.

"Anytime, it's why I…" Lucc cut his words short and perked his ears, he heard something out of the ordinary.

"Something wrong?" Silva had become a bit worried herself from his sudden actions.

"I think someone's here…"


	9. Forced Into Danger

"Stay here." Lucc was afraid himself but he wouldn't put Silva in harm's way and took responsibility to protect her. The noise came from Ryan's room and Lucc couldn't describe what it sounded like other than a strong burst of air. He slowly walked to Ryan's doorway and peeked inside. His window was open and it wasn't prior to now, someone had to have forced it open and gotten inside but it was quiet and the room was empty as far as Lucc could tell. He wished Ryan was here at this point, he had no idea what to do in this situation.

Lucc slowly trotted back into the living room with Silva who was now on the floor right in front of the couch.

"Anything?" She whispered to him as Lucc got close to her.

"No...I think we should leave until my trainer returns." Lucc suggested and Silva obviously agreed, but as soon as they slipped through the door, Silva behind Lucc. He saw someone standing right in front of him and looked up to see a strange red mask shielding his identity.

"We can't just let you go after what you've seen and taken little guy." Lucc knew exactly who it was, one of the two creeps that had broken into his friend's home earlier. The man reached down to grab him but Lucc swiftly darted under his legs and turned around, following up with a quick attack that was aimed to sweep his legs. It was executed perfectly and knocked the guy on his back which would buy them some time. "Silva let's go!" Lucc yelled to snap her out of her frozen state of shock. Silva had been standing by the doorstep and ran over to Lucc once he'd spoken to her.

"Just follow me." Lucc noticed that the guy he knocked over was quickly getting back up. Silva followed after Lucc as he ran down the sidewalk but they were both shortly stopped by a black van pulling up in front of them from an alleyway and blocking their path. About three other people hopped out of the back and had already begun to surround them, Lucc could barely react at this point. It was all happening so fast.

His ears instinctively perked once he heard a loud noise fill the air, one of the few people surrounding Lucc and Silva had fallen dead. A gunshot, it had to be. Another air-shattering sound was heard and another body fell with it which scared the remaining people to no end judging by how they got back into the van and floored it. Lucc watched them drive off before turning to Silva.

"Are you ok? You didn't get hurt right?" He asked and eyed her body for anything visible.

"Nope, thanks to you." Silva let off a slight grin.

"Lucc!" Lucc turned his head quickly to see Ryan running towards him with some kind of rifle strapped over his left shoulder. It was him doing the shooting.

"You alright bud? And you?" Ryan kneeled down, asked them both quickly and got a nod in response. "Good, now Lucc. Whatever you did, you got yourself into big trouble...which also gets me into trouble, I even killed some of them! Dammit Lucc, we don't even know who they are…" Ryan sighed and stood up while looking around. "Now we need to go somewhere to stay safe for a while, maybe a hotel. Let me go grab some things before the cops show up." Ryan quickly headed back into the house and gathered necessities to put in his backpack, but he couldn't find the pouch that held the rubies Lucc had gotten. Ryan didn't even have to think to know who took them, they must have hopped through the window. "I should have hid the pouch...this is your fault Lucc!" He yelled from his room. Lucc knew Ryan was upset with him, and he was right too. It was his fault.

"Ugh...I screwed up big time." Lucc sighed and walked back outside.

"What is this all about?" Silva was lost, she had no clue what was going on.

"It's n-" Lucc was about to brush it off but she had the right to know, he looked back at her as she followed him outside and stopped. He couldn't ignore those big eyes staring at him for answers so he told her everything. Where he went this morning, what he did, what he heard, saw and took. All of it. "I didn't want to tell you and break your heart even more Silva, you were already going through enough pain. I'm sorry." Lucc turned away a bit, he'd understand if she was upset with him as well. He felt her ribbons hug his sides a bit from behind and a nudge from her afterwards.

"How could I be upset with you? You did a lot for me, you just keep proving to be the best friend I'll ever have Lucc." Silva moved up to nuzzle his cheek with hers.

"Thank you, but I might have just cost my trainer his job…"

"We need to get those rubies back, I already called in last night to set up a meeting so they can get picked up today. I need to have them, I just don't know where to start." Ryan had interrupted their moment once he went outside too, he seemed stressed.

Lucc felt terrible for causing all of this and pulling his friend and trainer into a dangerous situation, but he couldn't reverse it now.

"Come on, we'll take the SUV." Ryan grabbed his red compact SUV from the garage that he barely drove since he was usually busy with work. Once they all were in, Ryan drove off. Just in time too since sirens were heard blaring a few blocks down the road.


	10. Fixing What Was Started

Lucc only felt worse as they drove in silence, he was sitting in the backseat with Silva. She attempted to comfort him as he was visibly upset but he moved away from her and her touch, Lucc wanted to be alone with his guilt.

His trainer probably hated him now. Lucc wasn't pointlessly shaming himself, what he did was big. People were killed and essential items that Ryan needed were taken. The only thing Lucc could think of was how badly he screwed up by trying to be helpful.

Ryan parked the vehicle in the lot once they got to the hotel, it was about 20 minutes down from their home. Once thoroughly checked in and escorted down a long stretch of corridor, they entered the room. It was a rather small room with two beds and a bathroom but it'd definitely do for the night.

Once they were settled in, Ryan sat on the bed that was by the window to the left of the room while on his laptop. He was researching all that he could about those masked people.

Lucc watched from the bed that was across from Ryan's. Him and Silva were sharing it, she was laying in the middle on her side while Lucc sat a bit more towards the top.

"Try not to overthink this, it'll be resolved and everything will go back to how it was." Silva looked up at him as she attempted to reassure him.

"You act as if it was ever normal...I can't get normal. Not with my life." Lucc glanced down at her.

"You can push through it, if I can help-"

"I don't need your help Silva, I know how to survive. I stay strong, but the good times. They don't ever last very long." He looked down and closed his eyes for a few seconds before speaking again.

"Look...Silva, I'm sorry. I just...my mind is everywhere right now." Lucc couldn't take his anger out on a friend.

"It's fine, I just hope you get some rest tonight."

Little did Silva know, Lucc would be doing the exact opposite. He hopped into Ryan's bed as he was researching and sat next to him, Ryan was sitting at the edge of the bed near the bottom. He paid no mind to Lucc and kept at his work, but Lucc wasn't trying to gain any forgiveness at the moment. He was watching what his trainer was researching in hopes to get any lead on those masked guys himself.

As evening began to fall over the region, Lucc only contemplated his plan more. Ryan had fallen asleep on his back and Silva was asleep as well. Perfect. Lucc had all that he needed to begin his work, an address that was about 10 minutes down the road from here. It supposedly led to an abandoned warehouse which seemed accurate for these thieves, Lucc walked over to the door and was about to hop up on his hind legs to turn the knob with his paw but heard a familiar voice.

"Lucc...what are you doing?" He turned around and saw Silva sitting up on the bed, giving him those big eyes of hers.

"It's not right, I can't let Ryan go after a mistake that I caused. I have to fix this myself." Lucc replied as he looked back at her.

"That isn't smart, you don't know anything about them. You need to think Lucc. I care about you a lot you know..."

"I have been thinking, what do you think has been on my mind for these past few hours Silva? I'm going, I'll be back soon. Stay put." After saying that, Lucc left while Silva just stared at the front door as it closed.

"What are you doing Lucc…" Lucc exited the hotel without glancing back, there was no way he could even think about rethinking what he was about to do. He didn't have much of a plan when it would come to breaking in, but this was something he had to accomplish. The streets were nearly empty, everyone and their pokémon were inside of their homes. Sleeping, living casual lives. Lucc couldn't have that, he couldn't ever experience a normal day or live in the present for very long. He's seen it all, how could he possibly not constantly think about the future when he's been there so many times? He knew everything that was coming and knowing of it has permanently poisoned his mindset, but sometimes...just sometimes it wasn't all that bad.

He began making his way down the sidewalk and towards the warehouse.


	11. The Warehouse

The sky was almost completely dark, Lucc was about a minute away from the warehouse and could now see it. A massive heap of metal in between a few other generic buildings, certain parts of its outside appearance even looked as if it were simply glued on. Once he made it, he sat in front of the front which was closed off. 'You have to do this Lucc, there's no turning back now.' Lucc shut his eyes tightly, attempting to build up some courage within himself. With some bravery now inside of him, he walked across the left side of the warehouse until he saw what looked like a hollow area in the makeup of the metal. It fell off pretty easily once he pawed at it. Without hesitation, Lucc silently wriggled his way through the opening he had made and looked around at the interior.

It looked like the inside of a shed, wooden shelves holding all sorts of valuables and various items littering the floor. It was dead quiet, hopefully no one was inside. Lucc walked across the cemented floor and scanned each shelf for his pouch. He saw rubies, diamonds, crystals. No pouch yet, but something else on the shelf caught his eye. A mechanical part that belonged inside of a time machine, he knew this because he saw the same part when Ryan was working on the inside of the machine that him and Lucc use. It was strange but Lucc had to stay focused, he continued taking silent steps and scanning a seemingly countless amount of shelves. This would go on for too long at this rate, if he had an up to date nano camera in his eye that actually worked half of the time this would be easier. There's a possibility that it could implode if overworked though and he had it for years so Lucc didn't want to risk it. As soon as he was getting close to losing hope. He finally saw it on one of the shelves, it was four levels up. Pretty high but Lucc had to get that pouch obviously.

He heard some ruckus nearby and perked his ears to the sound, time was up. Lucc had to act fast while staying quiet somehow, he heard footsteps walking throughout the warehouse which had to be the one guarding this place. The person could be anywhere inside so Lucc had to be cautious. There were empty spots on each level of the shelves that were luckily near each other so Lucc probably climb it if he was quick enough, at times like this he wished that he were a Liepard. He sighed and looked around before lining himself up to the shelf. Unfortunately, as soon as he took the jump he was seen.

"Hey!" Lucc's left hind paw slipped when he heard the voice, causing him to fall into the shelf he was about to use as a ladder. It tilted over and fell into the next one which caused a chain reaction of shelves falling into each other, a loud one. Luckily all of the fallen shelves put together created some makeshift stairs, Lucc could now easily grab the pouch and make his way out. He walked around to the open side of the shelf and grabbed the pouch that had fallen under it on the floor with his mouth, the footsteps were getting louder and he heard yelling accompanying it. Lucc went back to where he was last standing and ran up the shelf, jumping onto the next one and being careful not to slip in the process. The shelves being tilted onto each other made it easy to get across but another problem arose.

He heard a gunshot, followed by something whizzing past his ear, that guy was mad alright and Lucc couldn't blame him. He looked ahead and saw a soft spot in the wall just a few more shelves ahead that was near the ceiling of the warehouse. If he got to it fast enough then he'd likely be able to escape, Lucc kept hopping shelves. Some of them collapsing after he jumped to the next, a few more and he was where he wanted to be. Lucc would have to jump slightly upward and hope that that part of the wall was weak enough for him to push through, he heard another shot fired in his direction which caused him to flinch and reminded him that he had no time to think. Lucc leaped off of the shelf and just as expected, the section of the wall he hit fell off upon impact and he slipped right through the opening. The ground a few feet below him.

He landed well enough and began running back in the direction of the hotel, Lucc took a few turns down the sidewalk just in case they wanted to look for him. The only unfortunate thing was that he destroyed a bunch of their valuables, if they were mad before. They definitely were now. For the time being though, Lucc was just happy that he got the pouch back. He couldn't wait to show Ryan.


	12. Where They Found The Rubies

Lucc was nearly at the hotel at this point, he hadn't stopped running at all since he'd started and wanted to be sure that he was well out of sight of those masked men. As he now approached, Ryan was already out front and saw Lucc running in his direction.

"Lucc! I was just about to go looking for you," He said as Lucc approached. Now Ryan could see the pouch in his mouth. "You went out after them again?...how'd you even know where to find this? Thank you buddy, but please. Enough of this, I don't want anything happening to you. Come on back inside." Ryan took the pouch from him and led him back to their room.

"Lucc!" Silva exclaimed, glad to see her friend in one piece. Lucc hopped up into the bed and laid down in the middle of it immediately, he was pretty worn out.

"See? I can handle myself just fine." He looked up at her and yawned quietly.

"I know you can, but it's only natural to worry about who you care for." She grinned and sat near his upper body, nuzzling his cheek affectionately as he rested on his side.

"I just...I feel a lot better now after getting the pouch back and all, there's just something odd about this situation. I found a time machine part in the same place that I found the pouch in, why would these guys have that?" Lucc asked but the question was rhetoric, he didn't expect Silva to know. "Whatever, I guess I should try and rest for now while I can." He closed his eyes in attempt to but inside he felt restless, why did he always want to go stick his nose into things that didn't mind him? He was an adventurer by heart, but doing this would only get him into more trouble. As he was finally able to fall asleep, Ryan got a call.

"Hello?" "I was just about to call in...yeah I have the valuables, you can come pick them up now in fact. I'll text you the address." Ryan hung up afterwards and sighed in relief.

"Damnit!" The CEO of the company: Timə, slammed his cell phone down onto the desk beneath him.

"What's the problem?" His co worker asked as he entered the office.

"I'm trying to cut ties with one of our employees, I hired someone to take the rubies that he got to make it seem as if he failed at acquiring them. In which case we'd fire him for wasting meeting time and being useless to our company...but apparently he got them back."

"Why do you want to get rid of him so badly?"

"Because I think he may have found our oasis in Kanto and we can't take any chances...I don't want to resort to getting him killed yet if I don't have to, I'll figure something out. Just send one of our guys out to get the rubies for now, I have the address. No one told me he was screwing around in that region."

Ryan made sure to keep the rubies in his hand this time so it was guaranteed that they were with him for this meet-up. He headed outside after receiving a text message that the person was here after about 20 minutes. Ryan opened the passenger door of an all blue SUV with dark blue tinted windows out in the parking lot and got in.

"They're all in there." Ryan handed the pouch to the man, he nodded and emptied it into his hand to check for himself and handed Ryan a few bundles of cash and the pouch back in exchange after he did.

"Thanks." He stepped out of the vehicle a few seconds later and watched it drive off. "How much is this anyway?" He counted it which took a while but eventually came up with $2,500. "That works." Ryan grinned to himself and headed back inside to the hotel room. He'd finally be able to sleep somewhat tonight, his job was stable now thanks to Lucc. The only other problem were those masked group of people, Ryan couldn't go back home. Probably ever in fact, but he had nowhere else to go. No family, no friends. He'd have to sleep in his car if he didn't find somewhere to go. If only he could live in another era or something, but he did need some sleep for now. Ryan laid down in his bed and turned the lights off, he looked across from his bed and saw Lucc curled up and in a deep sleep. Silva was right beside him, they seemed pretty close. Ryan sighed and turned over, he'd try to get some sleep for tomorrow.


	13. Back to Kanto

Lucc opened his eyes, his surroundings unusual. For a second anyway, as he looked around he noticed that the interior resembled Aura's bunker. He hopped down from her bed and stood in one place, confused.

"Lucc." He flinched and turned around to see her standing behind him. "There's something you need to know." Her eyes were completely black which kind of freaked Lucc out but he kept listening. "It's about your last journey here. Come back." Her voice echoed in his ears before he woke up. Lucc sat up rather quickly and felt his heart racing.

"What's wrong?" Silva had been sleeping next to him so his movement woke her up.

"Nothing, just a nightmare." He heard her say a few more things but was no longer focused on her. He was wondering if that dream had actually meant anything, of course Lucc wanted to see that sweet Vaporeon again but he wanted to know if that dream was really trying to tell him something.

"Hey?" Silva's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "You sure you're okay Lucc?" She asked while sitting up behind him.

"Y-Yeah I'm fine, I just need to get back to Kanto." He didn't know how he would though, maybe Ryan would land another mission.

"For what?"

"I need to see her again, I need to go see Aura." Lucc hopped down from the bed, looking over at Ryan as he still slept. He wanted to go outside and take a walk alone but didn't want to cause any unnecessary worry if his trainer were to wake up and see that he was gone.

"You know you don't have to push me away Lucc." Lucc heard Silva and a bit of pain in her tone as well, he turned around and looked up at her while she was on the bed.

"I'm not doing it on purpose, I just need time to think. A lot has been going on recently." Just after he finished explaining, Ryan woke up. Lucc looked over at him as he sat up and yawned.

"Morning you two." He checked his cell phone and saw a few missed calls. "Hm." Ryan decided he would call back outside of the hotel room and walked out of the room door after he got up and threw some clothes on, what he didn't know was that Lucc had followed behind him and had Silva prop the door open a bit for his return. He stayed by a wall in the corridor while Ryan was on a call in the empty lobby. "Yeah, you called?...again? Sure, I'll do it. Tonight you said? Alright then." Ryan had just taken a job to go back to Kanto and collect more rubies for some high pay. They must have wanted a lot of them, he slipped the phone back into his pocket and Lucc headed back to the room quickly on that note. He ran down the hotel's hallway, making it back through the door successfully and exhaled in relief afterwards.

"Thanks for holding it for me Silva." Lucc said while hopping back onto their shared bed.

"No problem." She replied and moved her paw away from the door, letting it close. "You sure seem happier all of a sudden." Silva hopped up on the bed next to him.

"Well I have to go back to future Kanto for a mission, it'll be tiresome again but worth it as well."

Ryan came back through the door a few moments later and sighed. "Alright Lucc, back to Kanto. Same job as last time. I'm definitely getting you better nanotech after this mission too. Silva, uh...you'll have to stay here unfortunately but you'll be safe as long as you stay put." He went and patted Silva on the head gently before entering the bathroom and getting himself ready.

"One day Silva, one day I'll bring you along." Lucc nudged her cheek with his.

Evening approached quickly for Lucc since him and Silva were talking the hours away, and he was pretty happy about the upcoming mission. Once 7PM finally hit, Ryan took Lucc outside and Silva was forced to stay behind inside of the hotel room, the pod had been dropped off out in the parking lot. It typically didn't matter that the public saw it as long as it wasn't tampered with, one could only enter the pod if it could read the keycard inserted into a slot near the door to confirm that they worked with timəanyway. Ryan approached it and eyed the box, in a way these pods kind of felt like a second home to him. He entered it and shut the door behind Lucc.

"You ready bud?" He hung the gray pouch over Lucc as usual and prepared the machine to take them to 3065, pulled the levers and endured the vibrations until the pod stopped all movement a few minutes later. "This time I'll watch properly." Ryan made sure the stream was up and running on his monitor and grinned down at Lucc. "Alright, all set. Be safe out there Lucc."

He hopped out of the pod once Ryan opened the door for him and felt the silky and grainy sand sift under his paws. It was currently afternoon, Lucc began his walk to the grouped buildings. Hopefully Aura would be inside, though even if she wasn't he'd gladly wait for her.


	14. A Way Inside

Lucc was halfway there now, to his left and miles away he saw a huge thunderstorm. He could only faintly hear the thunder that came from it, this era was probably one of Lucc's favorites and one of the most intriguing. Another one being a snowy plain in the year 2043 he visited that was surrounded by snow-capped mountains, a very cold experience but it was beautiful to look at at the same time.

Lucc was nearly at his destination so he sped up to a quick trot instead of walking and arrived in about another five minutes, then entering the building and approaching Aura's bunker entrance. If she was in there she'd see him on her monitor, he only had to wait a few seconds before he heard the click which was the sound of her entrance unlocking. It slowly opened afterwards and Lucc walked down into the bunker, Aura was sitting at the bottom of the steps while giving off a grin.

"Hey there." Lucc said and met her once he made his way down the steps, he received an affectionate nuzzle against his cheek.

"I missed you Lucc, how've you been?" Aura looked up at him with her glacier colored eyes, as if she were an ice type. Odd looking and beautiful at the same time, either way it was better than the black eyes she had in his recent dream.

"Dealing with things back home currently but I'll survive, you?" Lucc had sat down next to her now.

"Avoiding the poachers and exploring...collecting, the usual." She sighed and eyed the pouch over Lucc's shoulder. "Here to collect more yourself huh?"

"Yep, same rubies at the same place."

"I went there a few more times while you were gone...in that forest, I saw people." Aura remembered once he brought the oasis up.

"People?"

"Mhm, they were wearing these full white suits and helmets. Armed too." She tried her best to recall anything else that she saw but nothing came to mind.

"I still have to go, this mission is worth a lot of money. I can carry myself just fine too." Lucc was just a bit more nervous about going up there now.

"You can't go up there alone without an escort, you'll get lost. Plus there are traps set everywhere now. As much as I don't want to go back there, I'll go with you Lucc. Just once more." Aura had found out about the traps the hard way by almost getting her tail cut off by one of them last time she was up there.

"Thank you Aura, you can always change your mind at anytime." Lucc slightly leaned down to give her neck a nudge with his head.

"And let you go off alone?" Aura momentarily leaned her cheek against his shoulder before standing up. "We should probably head out before it gets dark though, things get a lot harder to see there at night and we can't have that." She trotted up the steps, Lucc following after as the bunker top closed behind them. "We should get there a few hours before the sun begins to set which is good enough," Aura said as she padded through the sand.

"Do you ever want a partner Aura? A companion? Anything to keep you company." Lucc asked while walking by her right side.

"Of course, it gets painfully lonely sometimes. I fight through it but...it only leads to more loneliness, so I can either dwell on it or keep myself busy by exploring."

"Which one do you do?"

"Both." She looked over at him and grinned. "I was pretty sad before you arrived in fact." Aura figured she may as well be honest with him on some things.

"I wish I could have stayed longer last time, I just have no control over that." Lucc looked down for a moment, he did feel pretty bad for leaving so abruptly before.

"It's alright Lucc, I understand. I'm just glad you're back." They walked across the vast desert plain and its mounds for about two hours on end, focused on each other and their conversations more than how long they'd be walking, though they did drink water from a pond near the entrance of the oasis once they got there.

"The entrance to that cave we went through last time is blocked off now, but I found another way in. Just follow behind me and don't stray off of my path. I haven't memorized every trap placement yet." Lucc nodded in response, he was scared for sure but he trusted Aura and needed to get those rubies for Ryan. Aura started off by walking around some bushes and passing by certain trees either to the left or right of them as she advanced. It was already pretty dark in this forest but some sunlight shone through.

"So this is all in effort to avoid traps?" Lucc looked around out of paranoia while following after Aura's every step and turn she took.

"Yep, and as you can see, it's working." She glanced back at him and smirked a bit.

"M-Maybe you should...keep your eyes on the path ahead." Lucc suggested and sped up to more accurately mimic her.

"Relax will ya? Just trust me, I won't let you die as long you listen to me."

"I do trust you! It's just kind of scary knowing that death could be inches away from taking you at any moment."

"You're cute Lucc." Aura giggled and kept on her twisted path until they reached a clearing, only a few bushes littered the area. Other than that it was mainly moss, grass and uneven ground. "No traps around these parts, now we just have to get to the other side and you'll see the other entrance I was talking about. C'mon." Aura swiftly made her way across the large opening with Lucc behind her. She slowed down once they saw a hole in the ground, one that led to the cave underground.

"There, now we jus- hide!" Aura whispered harshly and hopped into a large bush that was to the left of the entrance and far enough from it so they could be hidden, Lucc fit inside next to her. "There they are, some of those people I saw. They weren't guarding this entrance before though." Aura quietly explained, Lucc heard her explanation but was busy studying their attire and the rifles that they were currently holding. Nothing that he recognized, until he caught a glimpse of the logo on the back of one's outfit. An upside down e that was plastered in black, now that looked familiar. Lucc had to have seen that somewhere before.

"The logo...the letter on the back of his outfit, the e." He watched them closely, now curious as to what else he may see about them that he could possibly know.

"What about it?" Aura had seen that letter a few times herself since she'd been here a few times.

"I think I know what it is, it just seems so...familiar." Lucc tried to think of where he recognized it from but couldn't come up with anything, he'd do some searching when he was back home. For now, they had to get through those two guys and into that cave. "Are we doing this quietly?" He asked and watched the guards talk amongst each other.

"Depends, I'm pretty sure we could knock them out pretty quickly since we have the element of surprise but waiting for an advantage to sneak past may work too."

"I can't afford to possibly wait for hours."

"Then I guess we aren't doing this quietly."


	15. Uncovered Secrets

"Now that Ryan is at Kanto, him and his pokémon. Kill off the Lycanroc if seen in our base, he's a problem. A threat. He's the one that retook the pouch." The CEO released the voice message through timeline, a special server that was built to communicate with his few other bases that had been built in future eras. Though it didn't work in realtime. "We're going to rule, my legacy will never die off with guaranteed Headquarters placed in multiple eras. I won't let this idiot and his dog go anywhere near my success, I can't take the risk. I wish I could simply tell him that I fired him, but he may want to know why. He may get suspicious o-or spread things that he shouldn't out of anger. He can't know."

Meanwhile, Ryan had seen the oasis in the middle of the desert through Lucc's eyes this time. If that wasn't odd enough, his heart had sunk once he saw the upside down eon one of the guard's outfits. Ryan knew exactly what that was, what was timə doing here? He was confused and wanted answers, he also wanted Lucc out of there but he'd never make it in time to tell him. Ryan felt a vibration in his right pocket, his phone was ringing. He didn't reach for it for a good few seconds, he just stood there in shock. Why? A phone call couldn't possibly connect from back home and Ryan knew no one in this era. He eventually took it out of his pocket and hesitantly pressed answer, hesitantly putting it up to his ear and staying silent.

"Ryan, isn't it? I believe you've overstayed your welcome here. You have nosed around in our business far too much, we know you're watching us. In fact, we're watching your pokémon as we speak." Ryan watched Lucc and the Vaporeon take out the two guards by the stairs. "It's too late for them Ryan, but if you leave our era now. Right now. We'll allow you to live and this will have never happened, your choice." The call dropped. Ryan couldn't begin to process what was going on, he eyed the lever that could send him back home in a second. No, he couldn't leave Lucc behind. Ryan luckily had his pistol in his back pocket since he'd slept with it the night before. He saw Lucc and his partner now heading down the stairs of that underground entrance,

"damn it…" Ryan quickly slipped into his protective suit and opened the pod's door, quickly hopping out into the sand and looking around. He had an idea on which direction to head in from watching Lucc but he had to get to the buildings first which was northeast from his position. He began to run across the sand, having no time to waste.

"We have to be pretty quick about this Lucc, I don't know how many people are around or where for that matter." Aura quickly made her way down the steps with Lucc and into the small cave where they were greeted by a guard walking almost into them, he acted quick and pointed his pistol at Lucc to which he froze up. Luckily Aura reacted even quicker by blasting a hydro pump right into his chest, the guard flew back. Right into the acid pool, luckily he didn't yell in pain since the initial impact from the hydro pump had knocked him unconscious. "You were just gonna let yourself get shot Lucc?" She shook her head and trotted over to where the rubies grew.

"I-I wasn't prepared for that!."

"Just hurry, coming back here was a mistake! I knew it." Aura watched the stairs for anyone else that could come down at any moment while Lucc filled his pouch with about ten rubies this time.

"Done, let's get out of here!" Lucc fit the pouch back over his neck and shoulder and ran with Aura back up the stairs. The original exit was also closed off so they had to run back upstairs.

"Remember that there's more traps ahead, you'll have to follow my lead no matter what." Aura said this between breaths as they ran north through another clearing and towards the end of the forest. They were now standing on top of a mound that they would need to slide down. "Alright, stop!" She eyed the ground ahead. It was a long stretch littered with branches, bushes, roots and trees. "Follow my lead and don't trip over any roots. Ready?" Aura looked over at him for a response.

"I'd like to think so." Lucc felt his heart begin to race already.

"Then come on." He watched her slide down the short mound, Lucc quickly followed her and her movements. Hopping over roots, dodging around left and right when she came to certain trees. It was like an obstacle course, but you couldn't afford to make a mistake. At all. Lucc began to see a clearing in the distance which had to be an exit, he felt a bit more at a peace until he heard something whiz past him. It didn't seem to fly by Aura though as Lucc heard a cry out of her, her front left paw slipped and slid across the ground next to her which triggered a trap door. The ground suddenly swung open under her, leading to a black abyss. Lucc had skidded to a stop behind her which caused his pouch to slip off of his neck and fly off in front of him. That happened to be a good thing, Lucc used quick attack and darted forward to grab the pouch's handle as Aura landed and held onto the pouch itself with both paws. Both Aura and the pouch dangling over the seemingly endless drop, Lucc was holding the weight of ten rubies and a Vaporeon in his mouth which was nearly impossible. Though he did use the move bite to strengthen his grip. A thick tree root was the only thing stopping him from falling forward with Aura as his hind paws were stopped behind it.

Aura gasped in fear as she held onto the pouch tightly with her paws and looked up at him. "D-Don't let go Lucc! Please!" Her life now fully relied on him. Lucc closed his eyes tightly as the handle slightly slipped from his teeth, he had to pull her up fast. He couldn't hold on for much longer and those guards were probably on their way to kill them. Lucc attempted to pull upwards and groaned as he did so but he had a hard time pulling the total weight. Aura finally realized this and had to free up some weight for Lucc. Without moving around too abruptly, she managed to stick her head inside of the pouch and take out about four rubies, dropping them into the abyss. "T-Try now!" He was able to pull Aura up some more but not enough, she had to throw out more. She gasped again as the pouch lowered significantly, He was losing his grip. "N-No Lucc! Please!" Lucc couldn't hold out much longer. Aura quickly dropped five more rubies below her while hearing him struggle to maintain his grip on the handle. "Try again!" This was his last shot, Lucc grounded all four of his paws and growled as he put all of his strength into pulling up on the handle. It was working, Aura was lifted up until she saw the ground again. She leaped from the pouch and climbed up onto the mossy surface once high enough. Lucc panted heavily and slung the pouch back over himself, he was exhausted from using two attacks and pulling Aura up.

"Lucc, we can't stop now! Stay on my lead!" She said quickly and began to run ahead again. Lucc looked behind him and saw about five armed guards running in his direction, he struggled to gather more strength and ran after Aura on whatever adrenaline he had left inside of him. As the opening grew bigger, Lucc saw the sand ahead which gave him some more encouragement to continue. Aura repeatedly glanced behind herself to make sure Lucc was keeping up, a few seconds and her paws were hitting sand again. Along with Lucc's a moment later, he desperately wanted to collapse now but knew stopping would probably mean death at this point. Lucc kept following after Aura until she stopped once they'd ran over a few tall mounds. "We should be safe for now, they can't see us." She tried catching her breath as she watched Lucc. His head was currently spinning, his vision blurred. Lucc couldn't possibly carry on, he fell onto his side and blacked out.

"How did you lose two stupid pokémon?! Useless! Just...just fall back." He sent the voice message and sighed.

"I think you should take a break Jared." His co-worker suggested and leaned back in a chair.

"I guess I have to get this done upon their return, no trouble...but now I have to get Ryan killed, they know too much about the oasis. I hate when it must come to this."


	16. Bonding

Late evening had fallen over Kanto, a cold one. Lucc had been unconscious for about an hour now and Aura had been curled up by his side as she waited for him to wake up. He'd saved her life, it was now that Aura felt vastly different about him. That he could have possibly given up his own life while holding onto hers.

As she thought to herself for another few minutes, Aura felt movement by her side. Lucc slowly opened his eyes and saw the blurry night sky slowly falling into focus all around him, he sat up and now realized that he still felt a bit lightheaded from earlier and winced in response.

"Careful Lucc...try and take it easy, you passed out." He heard Aura's soft voice coming from beside him and looked down at her.

"I'm- I'm fine. Just tired is all." He replied and eyed her, she was the one who'd almost died earlier.

"Are you okay? Were you injured at all?" Lucc asked since he remembered her cry after the bullet flew past him earlier.

"Bullet just grazed my paw, felt really hot was all." She looked up at him and grinned a bit.

"I'm sorry Aura...I'm sorry I brought you back to that forest, you should've stayed behind. You nearly died because of me." Lucc swallowed in attempt to hold back any tears from the guilt he felt.

"Lucc...Lucc don't say that, I don't regret a moment of it." Aura stood up and walked over to his left side. "You saved my life, you didn't let go of that pouch. I'm glad I went with you, and all I can say is thank you." She sat next to him and placed her right paw overtop of his.

Lucc glanced down at her paw, his blue eyes then slowly making their way to her face as she looked up at him. They shared eye contact and knew they shared similar feelings towards each other, it was communication without a word having been said.

"How many rubies are still in that pouch?" She broke the silence and looked back at it. Lucc checked inside briefly and sighed.

"One, if Ryan was watching I think he'd understand though." He looked ahead at the sky that surrounded them, completely clear and starry, beautiful to gaze at. "Think we should head back? It takes hours." Lucc asked, if he didn't have to return to Ryan he'd probably stay out here all night.

"As much as I'm enjoying this, I think we should." Aura stood up and stretched out her front paws, Lucc shortly doing the same as they began their long walk back to Aura's bunker.

Unfortunately, Ryan couldn't advance any farther from the the grouped buildings since he had no idea where to go from there on and couldn't risk getting lost. He headed back and was nearly at the pod, Ryan could only hope that Lucc had made it out of that forest. He nearly tripped a few times as he ran but eventually made it. The monitor was still on when he entered, they did make it. Ryan sat down against the wall and smiled to himself, sighing in relief while he tried to catch his breath.

"You have to leave tonight, right Lucc?" Aura asked and found herself walking close to Lucc's side again.

"I always have to. I do this professionally, so it's really just...a job." Lucc wished he could spend a night here with her though.

"I know…" Aura's voice drifted off, which Lucc heard. It only killed him inside even more to hear the disappointment in her voice.

"I'd stay Aura. If it were up to me I'd just stay here, it's so much better here in the future to me. In my time it's beginning to fall apart. Here? It all already happened, it's already broken and dead." He stared ahead as he spoke, sure there were still problems and trouble in this era but nowhere near as bad as they would soon become back home.

"Well, you're always welcome here Lucc. I just hope you'll be okay back home."

"So do I."

They reached the bunker in about another half an hour and entered it. Lucc laid on the floor out of pure exhaustion once he made it down the steps and let out a lengthy sigh. He could feel his paws throbbing.

"You know you could just take the bed right? It's softer." Aura grinned down as she sat by him near the foot of the bed.

"I don't even have the energy to jump onto a bed." He mumbled and closed his eyes sleepily, Lucc still had to walk back to the pod soon. "I just want a proper rest, I still have to make it back to my trainer."

"Well you can stay here as long as you'd like." She pawed at his ears a little and giggled, his ears twitched in response as he looked up at her.

"I have to be back before tomorrow though, even though he'll at least be slightly disappointed that I brought back only one ruby."

"You'll be fine, I'm sure of it." Aura silently laid down on her side and let him rest in silence for nearly a full hour or so, then figured he'd be there all night if she didn't do something. "Hey, shouldn't you get going soon? It'll just get later and later." Aura gently nudged his upper back with her head.

"Oh, you're kicking me out now?" Lucc sat up on his stomach and lightly chuckled.

"You basically said you were on a time limit, so I'm getting you back on track!" Aura leaned forward and gave him a small kiss on his cheek, smirking. "Besides, I'm always going to be here."

Lucc was blushing underneath the fur on his cheeks, but tried his best to hide the fact that he was at least a bit surprised. "I-I know Aura, I guess I should get going then." He sat up and shook out his fur a bit.

"Go on Lucc, and be safe for me." She told him and nodded once towards the direction of the exit.

"I'll come back Aura, I promise." He looked back at her once more before heading back up the stairs and exiting her residence.


	17. A Tight Situation

Lucc left Aura's building in a great mood, she did like him after all. He just wished he could've stayed with her a bit longer, but otherwise, he was happy - until he remembered that he was bringing back one gem in that pouch.

"You sure failed this time Lucc…" He mumbled to himself as he dragged along the sand, Lucc would definitely sleep well tonight, no matter how the night ended from how exhausted he was. He just hoped Silva was alright, she was always such a big help to him. Even kept him sane most of the time.

Lucc's constant thoughts made the journey back to Ryan end pretty quickly, he saw the pod in the distance as he trotted over a sand mound and felt relieved that it would be all over. Temporarily anyway. The door opened for him since Ryan saw Lucc approaching from the monitor.

"Are you ok? Any injuries?" Ryan closed the door behind Lucc and inspected him closely. "Something has to be going on, it scares me. I don't know what it is or if I should ask about it…" Ryan was mainly talking to himself since Lucc couldn't respond but it felt good to voice it to him, he knew Lucc listened.

Ryan thought about abandoning the job but he'd have no other way to make money and getting another job in the region's current economic state would be near impossible. What worried him was that timə was obviously established in other eras and he obviously wasn't supposed to know about it, the unknown outcome is what terrified him.

"Alright, let's go back home." Ryan pushed away some of his emotions for now and took Lucc's pouch in his hand. "One ruby huh? I don't know what happened back there but I'm just glad you made it out alive." He said as he flash froze the single ruby and pulled the lever on year 2025 afterward. He also went ahead and input the address of the hotel, 2025 had spawn points everywhere since it was their era. Ryan took off his protective suit while the machine took them back home and stuffed the ruby in his pocket.

Once all movement stopped, he opened the pod's door and sighed as he saw four police cars parked near the hotel. Lucc saw them as well through the small opening in the door. They must have found something out during the investigation and traced it back to Ryan.

"We can't go out there, I'll definitely be taken in." Ryan closed the door and sighed, it was just one problem after another. They'd have no choice but to spend a night in another era until this cooled down, preferably one with nothing against them. "Well Lucc, looks like we're heading back to the future." Ryan went over to the keyboard and thought about what year he should input.

"Hmm. Let's try…" he entered 2088. Before natural disasters ended the majority of humanity and enough time after the wars and economic depression that was beginning to take place now. Ryan pulled the levers and sat down as the machine took them there, giving Lucc a few rubs between the ears. "Thank you for being such a great partner and companion. I'd be nowhere without you." He grinned and stood up. Lucc appreciated that Ryan recognized all of what he does for him and began to feel just a bit closer to him.

Ryan slowly opened the door once they'd arrived. They were greeted by a huge and seemingly futuristic city, it seemed afloat and there were vibrant and flashing digital signs within the city visible from their position. Ryan stepped out and kept his eyes on the skyscrapers for a few seconds, "Come on Lucc." He motioned for him to hop out after him and closed the door behind him. They were standing on top of a grassy and tall mountain, the street luckily right below them.

"I think we can get someone to upgrade your nanotech here Lucc." Ryan knew the rules about interacting with people from different times but he was skeptical about where he stood with timə as of now, and Lucc really needed an upgrade.

He walked down the mountain trail that lead to the street with Lucc and looked around at the mainly empty streets with apartment buildings lining up the first few blocks, the few parked vehicles he did see didn't have futuristic exteriors other than a much sleeker design than the one's back home, but had complicated interiors with many gadgets along the interfaces and dashboards.

"Kind of creepy, a lit up city with no one occupying it." Ryan looked around as him and Lucc aimlessly walked along the sidewalk.

"Hey!" Ryan flinched and looked around himself quickly once he heard a voice, a person waving from a second floor window a few buildings behind them caught his eye.

"Huh…" by the time he'd made it back over to the white building out of curiosity, the person had left the window. The front door to the building swung open a few moments later and a lady, possibly a bit older than Ryan motioned with her hand for them to come inside.

"Uh..." Ryan was skeptical about this for many reasons, he had just entered this strange and empty city and someone was already telling him to enter their home. Then again, it may be for good reason.

"Hurry!" She said and motioned some more. He sighed and hesitantly walked inside of the building with Lucc trailing behind. "Why are you outside at this time? It's dangerous out there you know." She walked up a flight of stairs and opened the door to her unit, closing it behind Ryan and Lucc.

Now that he could get a better look at her, Ryan saw her fair skin, red, long wavy hair and peculiar yellow eyes. She also wore a black shirt and pants, it only reminded Ryan that he needed a change. He'd been wearing the same blue jeans and thin red jacket for a while.

"Well, we aren't exactly from around here." Ryan replied and looked around at her small living room. There was a small brown couch, a TV attached to the wall in front of it and some other furniture. A small but cozy apartment.

"You can take a seat on the couch if you'd like." The woman said and went into the kitchen, Ryan did sit down since he was pretty tired and Lucc sat by his feet on the carpeted floor.

"What's all of this about?" He was pretty confused, she kind of just dragged him in off of the street.

"I saved you two. No one goes out at night, it's when the ravagers lurk about."

"The what?" He replied and saw her walk over and kneel a few feet in front of the couch, she also placed a bottle of water on the coffee table in front of him.

"It's what we call them. They're machines that were created long ago to aid us in the war of 2029, but they decided to turn against us soon after it ended; they just kind of roam about now. Seems like it was ripped straight out of a movie." She explained and looked at both Ryan and Lucc. "I'm Sara by the way, cute pokémon you have by your side." Sara grinned down at Lucc and slowly reached her right hand out to give him a gentle pat on the head, which Lucc allowed.

"My name's Ryan, and his is Lucc. I'm currently looking for someone to work on his eye. In fact, it's basically why I'm in this city." He was lying, but he couldn't say too much. Ryan hoped that Sara could possibly recommend someone that'd help with it.

"Well what exactly needs to be worked on?" She asked and got a bit closer to Lucc to inspect him.

"He has a nano camera in his right eye, but it's very outdated, we need one that's more up to date and includes more useful features." Ryan watched her gently hold his chin up while inspecting Lucc's eye.

"Easy enough, just a replacement. I could get it done for you, the most recent installment I have is NNO-90." Sara grinned and stood up.

"That'd be perfect!" Ryan was pretty relieved Sara knew about Nanotech and was even willing to go through with a full operation.

"All right, I'll go get my kit." Ryan watched her walk off into her room and gently scratched the back of Lucc's neck.

"Looks like you're finally getting that upgrade bud."


	18. New Views

"I hired you and your crew to kill Melissa because she was getting into our business far too much for my liking. Yes, she was only doing her job. Making sure I wasn't out of my jurisdiction. We have clearance from Regional Response to use time travel, but what I've been setting up in future eras...it's against our contract and she began to grow suspicious. I've been doing a good enough job staying under the radar for anyone to screw it up! I told you guys of the malstone she had in her house that I gave her, it was generous payment. Now I want no more questions, you only have one more task and it's to rid of an employee named Ryan and his Lycanroc. Help me save and preserve timə." Jared, the CEO was sitting in his office with a few of the red masked men and their leader sitting across from him. He'd previously hired them to kill Silva's trainer and steal the pouch from Ryan. They went by the name of Scorpion and were an underground professional sided gang.

With silence and an understanding nod in response, the leader stood up and walked out with the others. "I'll send you the information you need!" Jared yelled after them and sighed. He was on the verge of a mental breakdown, constant threats possibly confronting his plans. He was losing hair over the constant stress, his short black hair now only growing in on the sides of his head. He took his glasses off and looked into his pocket mirror, his skin had even gone pale and he'd gained some weight so he looked older than he was. He had to rid of Ryan at all costs.

"Alright, found it. Just had to do some digging. It's been a while since I've operated." Sara set the plastic box down on the couch and sat on her knees in front of Lucc. "Last chance to change your mind before I operate." She gave a small precaution before she started which neither seemed to object to.

Sara reached over inside of her kit and took out small and sharp needle, holding it in her right hand. "Now I need you to be completely still as I do this so I don't rupture anything and have you go blind in this eye. I just need to trace an opening around your old lens." Lucc nodded and sat up straight, nearly holding his breath in order to keep as still as possible. Sara held a small flashlight in her left hand and focused the beam into his eye so she could carefully pinpoint her movements. She took a deep breath to focus before leaning in and holding her right hand above Lucc's snout, then placing the tip of the needle on the outer edge of the lens as she began to trace around it.

"It'll be alright Lucc." Lucc heard Ryan's voice and appreciated his reassurance. The needle felt odd and he desperately wanted to blink but knew he couldn't, luckily the old lens provided shielding so he wasn't sensitive to the flashlight. He felt the needle trace around the edges of his pupil where the lens was located.

"Almost done Lucc. You're doing great." Sara said as she squinted her eyes to maintain focus. After she had completely traced and disattached the lens from around his pupil, Sara grabbed a small pair of surgical forceps from her kit to now extract it. "Keep super still for me again Lucc." She inhaled and grabbed onto the tip of the now loose lens with her forceps, slowly pulling it off of his eye and exhaling. "Done! Now for the easy part. Replacing it." Sara leaned down and gave Lucc a kiss on the head for his compliance, he'd never gotten any physical affection from a female human before. He was taken in by Ryan as a pup so Ryan was basically the only human he really knew.

Lucc watched her take out a small transparent case from the kit and open it, then gently grabbing it with the forceps. "It may look like a typical contact lens right now but it'll power on once you're wearing it. Last step." Sara focused the flashlight back onto Lucc's eye and steadily placed the new lens where the old one was. "Go ahead and blink twice for me." She sighed heavily and put both items that she was holding back into her kit. Lucc blinked two times as he was told and saw differently through his right eye, everything was now more vivid in color.

"Why's that there?" Ryan grinned and saw something that Lucc couldn't see, a sharp red light that lined the entire outer area of his blue colored iris.

"It's just a part of its system, he can rid of it by turning off the nanocam. He'd have to blink three times within two seconds, and twice within one second to turn it back on. He'll get to know its many features and how it works soon enough." She closed up her kit and gently set it on the floor by the couch.

"I can't thank you enough for this Sara, how much will it cost?" Ryan asked, that nano camera was past even his time so it was likely expensive.

"Don't worry about it. I couldn't possibly take any payment from you two." She smiled and quickly changed the subject, "and since you can't actually go outside until tomorrow morning. You and Lucc could take the couch for the night...you hungry at all?" Sara gave Ryan no time to respond or to reject anything that she had offered so he went along with it.

"Uh, sure! But I don't want to take advanta-"

"It's fine, I'll just make something quick for you both." She stood up and made her way back into the kitchen.

"Thank you, I really appreciate all of this!" Ryan had to slightly raise his voice since she was in the kitchen and Sara nodded in response. He finished the rest of his water and leaned back onto the couch.

Lucc however, was testing out his new nano lens. It had given him in a short text introduction after he had initially turned it on. 'it told me it operates off of my thought patterns, like if I were to think to myself? Let's see.' It had five options listed in a column on the lens screen in small white text.

'penetrate surfaces.' Lucc chose the first one and spoke to himself within in his mind, about a second later the list disappeared and his vision completely changed. He saw everything in infrared, it was all a deep orange and Ryan apparently showed up as a neon green through his lens. Lucc also saw people walking outside of the apartment in the hallways as green figures. Through the walls. Lucc perked his ears in surprise. 'I-It works!...Cancel.' He thought to himself and watched the infrared effect fade and his vision go back to normal. He'd try out the rest of the options later, for now Lucc really needed rest.

He sighed quietly and quickly blinked three times to turn off the lens, then hopped onto the couch near Ryan and laid down afterward. They both got to rest for a while before Sara brought them dinner, and after they ate she wished them goodnight and went into her own room.

Ryan laid on the couch and traced his right hand up and down Lucc's furry back a few times as they rested in the dark. "I'm not sure what we're doing tomorrow, we can't stay here but it's risky if we were to go back home as well...I don't know, just get some rest tonight Lucc. You deserve it." He closed his eyes and tried to get some himself. Lucc would definitely sleep, he was worried about Silva and missed Aura but the pure exhaustion that plagued his body made it hard to stay awake, and he didn't fight it.


	19. Digging Deeper

Lucc had woken up early the next morning, before either Ryan or Sara had. He'd silently gotten off of the couch and was sitting on the floor while testing the rest of the options on his nano camera. He'd tried out one option last night, four more were listed. Zoom lens and valuables scanner. 'Both pretty self explanatory...' Lucc decided to skip those two for now which left him with only two more options.

'Combat aid' Lucc activated the feature and saw a tracking box show up on Ryan's throat with a slow blinking fang logo in the middle of it as Lucc looked over at him while he slept. 'Uh...well that should come in handy if I'm ever in a tight situation. Cancel.' Lucc yawned and had one feature left to try out. It read flash. 'That must impair vision for anyone that I direct it at, better not use it now...just in case.' Lucc turned his lens off and walked over to the living room window, the city was alive now. He kind of wanted to explore what this city had to offer but he knew how his trainer was and Ryan couldn't afford to waste too much unnecessary time. Silva's current location was unknown and who knew what was up with Ryan's job. Lucc backed away from the window and turned around just in time to see Ryan wake up.

"Morning." He rubbed his eyes and sat up on the couch. "How early did you wake up? I hope you got some sleep." Ryan checked his cell phone for the time, "ten in the morning...we gotta get going Lucc." He sighed and stretched before standing up, the peace felt great while it lasted but Ryan couldn't run from his problems. At least not this one.

"You're off?" Sara came from out of her room, she must have overheard Ryan.

"Uh...yeah, gotta head back to our parts. Thank you for taking us in, I mean it." Ryan was surprised he hadn't slipped up at all and told her that he was a time traveler yet.

"You're welcome, have a safe trip back. And you too Lucc." She grinned and bent down to rub his head in between his ears.

"Oh and as something extra, I wanted to give you this." Ryan pulled the single black ruby out of his pocket that Lucc had brought back from Kanto and handed it over to her.

"That's...that's very valuable, I can't take that Ryan!"

"Please? You did a lot for us. Plus it would leave you a good memory." He gently took her left hand in his and pulled it out, opened it and placed the ruby in her palm. He then cupped his hand around hers to close it. "Just take it," Ryan slightly smiled and let go of her hand.

"Thank you..." Sara eyed him as she held the ruby tightly.

"See you around Sara." Ryan left the building with Lucc and looked around as he stood on the sidewalk. "Or not...alright, back to hell Lucc. C'mon."

They made their way back to the pod and took one last look at the huge and lively city in front of them. "I don't even know what region this is...oh well, I guess it doesn't matter anymore." Ryan turned and opened the door to the pod, stepping inside and closing it after Lucc. "We've got to flash freeze your lens, no big deal unless it were to touch your actual eye I assume" He took out a small hose-like object that was attached to the flash freeze container and knelt down to Lucc, he held his chin up with his left hand and focused the thin white beam of light from it onto his lens for a few seconds. "That should do it." Ryan set the item back where it was and took him and Lucc back to 2025 with the pull of two levers.

Once there, Ryan slowly opened the pod's door and looked around at the parking lot and the area by the hotel again. "I think it's all clear this time, let's go. We've gotta check out the room." He got out of the pod and quickly walked over to the hotel's entrance with Lucc following behind. The lobby was empty, no receptionist present either. Ryan jogged through the hallway and to the door of the room that they'd stayed in recently, it was locked of course and the key card slot had even been removed. "Damn...there has to be another way in there."

While he thought about that Lucc had another way to find out. He turned on his lens, 'penetrate surfaces.' Lucc had to get used to the new infrared vision effect but seeing through walls was great. He saw the two beds and a heat signature. The ventilation system, the heat pushing through the chambers and into the room showed up in his lens and gave him an idea. 'Cancel'.

He nudged Ryan's leg with his cheek and looked up at a vent near the ceiling that was on a wall, it took him a while before he saw and actually caught on to what Lucc was getting at.

"I see, you want to go through the vents to get inside of the room? Smart, let's do it." Ryan leaned down and picked him up in his arms, then lifted him up just high enough to reach the vent that was near their door. "May have to use an attack to break through, just be quick before someone sees us." Ryan looked down the hall often as he held Lucc in front of the closed vent.

Lucc was one step ahead of him, he charged up zen headbutt and let the vent have it. It may have slightly hurt his head and was unfortunately loud since it was metal but at least the opening was cleared, with the help of Ryan he climbed inside quickly. Lucc wasn't claustrophobic but being in this tight space was not something he particularly enjoyed. Especially since hot air was currently being pushed through the vents.

'Just have to get to the room Lucc, it's close by.' He mentally calmed himself and began slowly making his way through the tightly enclosed ventilation system, he took a right down the long stretch until he arrived at a dead end and another vent in front of him. Lucc peeked through the slots and saw their room right below him. 'Yes!' He prepared another Zen headbutt and knocked the vent off of the wall, the carpeted floor between both beds beneath him.

Lucc placed his front paws on the wall outside of the vent and looked down, he could definitely land it but if he broke something there would be no way for Ryan to get inside in order to help him. Before he over thought too much, he let himself slip out from the vents and landed just as imagined on all fours. There were a few black duffel bags on the bed but Lucc would let Ryan investigate them, he walked over to the door and stood on his hind legs while pushing down the handle of the door with his front right paw.

"You're a genius Lucc!" Ryan leaned down to pat his head as he pushed open the door and silently closed the door behind himself. He put on a pair of white latex gloves that he kept on him so that he didn't leave any fingerprints behind. "Well, let's see what's in these." He walked over to the first bed and unzipped one of the bags.

Inside was a black, scoped assault rifle with a few pre-loaded magazines next to it. "They're storing things in here, which means whoever it is could be coming back at any moment. We need to be quick." Ryan zipped the bag back up, luckily he still had his pistol on him.

He went to the next bed where there were two more bags and unzipped one of them. "Papers." Ryan picked up a paper that was stamped exempt in bold lettering since it caught his eye and started reading it. "Why is...my name on here?" Ryan set the paper down back into the duffel bag and sighed. He'd obviously been fired but wasn't notified of it, that was strange.

Ryan couldn't think about that now though, he went over to the last bag and slowly unzipped it. Inside was a few red masks from those guys that he killed back at his house, he remembered it. "Weren't the police in here? This isn't making any sense, none of this is!"

Ryan quickly turned his head to the door when he heard voices in the hallway, he quickly zipped the bag back up and hid under the bed. "Come on Lucc!" Ryan whispered and Lucc crawled next to him. The door opened a few seconds later and footsteps were heard by both beds. 'Penetrate surfaces', Lucc wanted to see what was going on. He watched their movements above him as they looked through the bags.

"It's all here, but I still don't think the masks should be in our possession." One of the voices said. They were both males.

"Relax, we'll be fine if we're quiet about it. What's this?" Lucc saw one of them pick up the vent piece off of the floor, he had forgotten about that. "Was the vent off before we left?"

Ryan had to control his breathing, he quietly pulled the pistol out of his back pocket and firmly held it in his left hand.

"I don't think so, someone could have been in here."

"Or they still could be. Just look around a bit, it's a small room."


	20. Finding Energy

Lucc watched the two figures poke around in the bathroom and in the closet, then one took a flashlight and looked under the bed next to theirs with it. Which meant that they'd check the one they were under next.

'Cancel.' He nudged Ryan's side to alert him of it and looked over to the right side of the bed where one of the guys were reaching down to check under it.

Ryan looked over just as the man had shined the flashlight in his face, they locked eyes for a moment before Ryan rolled out from under the bed, opposite from the side that the guy was crouched down by. Lucc followed; Ryan lifted his pistol as he quickly scrambled to his feet and shot it a few times at the man who hadn't noticed him yet. He was standing by the bathroom, two out of three bullets hit him right in the back and he fell over with a pained groan. The other man that was crouched near the bed slowly stood up with his hands raised.

"Kid, you've just made a big mistake, poking around in police business first of all...and you've just killed an officer to top it off. We're just undercover." He smirked at Ryan.

Ryan choked once he heard that, he wasn't a murderer. The last thing he thought was that the region's police force would be tied into this, but he'd unknowingly just killed one of them. Ryan completely froze, his hand shaking as he held the pistol and stared at the body of the officer he'd just shot in the back.

"Just put it down kid, it doesn't have to be like this..." The man began to gradually lower his left hand to where his pistol holder was on his waist. Lucc saw this and looked up at Ryan - he wasn't reacting at all. He was obviously in a state of shock. "Just...lower it." In a swift movement, the officer pulled his own pistol out of the holder.

Though before he was able to aim it at Ryan, a bright flash of light temporarily blinded him and he shielded his eyes in response. Ryan held his breath and emptied two more shots into the man's chest that was standing on the other side of the bed, and he fell to the floor immediately.

Ryan was sweating now. He swallowed and threw the pistol down onto the floor that was once in his hands. All he could do was stand there and look at the damage he'd caused.

Lucc shut off his lens, he was glad that the flash feature worked or else his trainer would have been dead right now. He watched Ryan fall to his knees and clutch his chest, possibly having a panic attack of some sort. It wasn't to be blamed, but they had to get out of there. Lucc nudged Ryan's leg a few times and waited until he managed to calm down. He took a few steps towards the door to try and lead Ryan on. It thankfully worked as Ryan did eventually stand up and began to follow Lucc through the hallway after opening the door. He nearly stumbled a few times but managed to stay on his feet while feeling lightheaded.

Lucc trotted down the sidewalk once they were outside, looking behind himself every few seconds to make sure that Ryan was still following behind. 'Where to go…' Lucc thought as he heard sirens in the distance, he had to think fast. The woods that were behind the hotel would be their best bet for now. Lucc took a sharp right and headed towards it.

They were in a few moments later, tall trees and leaves on the ground surrounding them. With no real destination, they walked miles across the seemingly endless stretch of woods.

About five minutes in and Ryan couldn't handle it anymore. "W-Wait Lucc, I need to...I need to rest." He sat down and leaned his back against a tree in silence while catching his breath for a few minutes; Lucc sat by him. "I killed...two cops Lucc, I'm dead. We shouldn't have gone back at all...I'm sorry for bringing you into this and putting you through such horrible experiences. All of it...I'm a terrible trainer and now a murderer." Ryan wiped the tears that now began streaming from his eyes. "I-If you want Lucc, you can go. Just leave me here. I'm gone either way and you deserve better." but Lucc obviously wouldn't leave, he sat right in front of his trainer and looked up at him with his blue eyes, as if talking to him with them. "It's pointless Lucc. I have the police, timə, those masked creeps...all after me and they're all probably working together to make sure I'm dead. If you go now, you'll be safe." Lucc didn't budge, he'd die with his trainer if it came down to it, fighting by his side.

He remembered how he used to think that him and his trainer weren't emotionally close to each other, now Lucc realized that it was a special bond that they shared. One of survival and trust. "I can't go on, I'm not doing this anymore Lucc. The running, the killing. Just go!" Ryan wiped his eyes some more and leaned forward, pushing Lucc away from him. That didn't deter the Lycanroc though, he knew Ryan just wanted him to be safe but Lucc wasn't going anywhere. He wouldn't let Ryan just give up.

His ears perked once he heard footsteps across the leaves and ground of the forest, they had to be searching for Ryan. He nudged his trainer's leg again and gazed up at him with a look that begged for his trainer to continue and push onward.

"No Lucc...no more." Ryan leaned back up against the tree, but Lucc still didn't give up. He kept his hard gaze on Ryan and even pawed at his legs, and as Ryan watched this, he would soon snap out of his state of hopelessness; a bit of realization built up inside of him. If the police were to find and take him in, he wouldn't ever see freedom again. In fact he would likely be killed. Ryan slowly stood up and sighed deeply. "Alright...let's go."


	21. Back Into Danger

Jared was furious and worry began to set in. "So he somehow got into the room, probably looked through the duffel bags and killed two undercover officers...then he escaped and is on the loose as we speak? I want him dead, I want Ryan and that stupid wolf of his dead!" He shoved all of the papers and items off of his desk. "If your men don't rid of him, I'll rip you from the job. If necessary, use the Sylveon as bribe. Anything you can!" He hung the phone up after talking to the leader of Scorpion once more. "I just need some more time…" Jared walked out of his office and into the room next to it after inputting a 12 digit pin number into the keypad by the door. In here was where he stored his personal time machine, he walked over to a keyboard and computer to the left of it by the left corner of the white wall and logged on.

The supercomputer held the power to delete all traces of timə itself, along with disabling the functionality of all travel pods, simply destroying it would cause corruption to the live data linked to the pods overtime and render them 90% useless due to the computer not being able to actively update and maintain the server that helps run them. "No one sees it...I'm trying to save humanity. After everyone is wiped out by the natural disasters, it'll be far too late. I'm preserving everything in advance...and I won't let anyone stand in my way of doing so."

Meanwhile, Ryan and Lucc had made some more progress. Them now jogging through the woods to escape what horrifying force was behind them. "We need to get back to the pod, there's no way they'll stop looking for us." Ryan stopped for a second and looked around at the tall trees and up at the sunset surrounding them. He was completely lost. They had to move forward until they had at least gotten out of the woods altogether. "Let's just get out of here before the police catch up to us, keep heading forward." He told Lucc and they both kept walking straight, enough distance between them and the search party so that they could slow their pace a bit for now.

Fortunately, the woods didn't stretch on for much longer; they walked onto an empty road about 10 minutes later. "I'm still lost...does your nanocam come with a GPS by any chance Lucc?" Ryan sighed and kneeled down on the side of the road while Lucc sat next to him. They had to keep moving of course, but it would be aimless and endless, there was nowhere to go. This is why Ryan wanted to give up before, what he was he fighting for anyway? If he got out of this alive, there was nothing to go back to, he had no one in his life. Nobody that really cared about him. Ryan was expendable, a nobody that was wanted dead since he was just as important as anyone else. It was a harsh realization.

Ryan knew exactly what he wanted to do now - something that would give him purpose. "Running isn't going to solve our problem...even if we did manage to escape, I'm sure they'll find some way to manipulate time against us if they wanted to. So we have to stop this. We have to kill it from its source before it all gets worse, and I've worked there long enough to know how."

It sounded nearly absurd to Lucc, but he was on board with his trainer, he missed Silva anyway and knew that they had her. Ryan was right.

"First, we just need to get off of this road…" And as if someone had heard what he said, he saw a gray vehicle a few miles down the road and waved it down once it got close enough. The SUV surprisingly stopped, and Ryan could now see that it had dark tinted windows, he couldn't see inside of it at all. "Alright Lucc, if it's some psycho...just flash them with your lens again." He saw the window roll down and a female sitting in the driver's seat.

"Lost?" Ryan heard her ask and walked up to the passenger window. A fair skinned girl about his age with fairly long and wavy brown hair was in the driver's seat, she had green eyes. He also saw a more tanned male sitting in the backseat who seemed to be asleep, neither seemed dangerous at first glance, but looks can always be deceiving so Ryan would stay aware.

"Yeah, my pokémon and I got turned around a bit in the woods back there. We just need a ride back to our area." Ryan wasn't lying too badly, they actually had gotten lost.

"Alright, get in." She said.

Ryan opened the door and sat in the passenger seat, Lucc laying in his lap as the vehicle accelerated. Ryan gave her the address to the area his house was in, the police probably wouldn't backtrack that far.

"My name's Paige, and that back there is my partner Luis." Paige glanced over at Ryan and then down at Lucc, she noticed something odd about his right eye almost immediately, but looked away pretty quickly.

"I'm Ryan, and his name is Lucc." This was the second time he'd introduced himself and Lucc to someone, felt like Deja vu.

"How'd you two get lost in the woods? Wandered?" She grinned a little and took a right turn as they entered the town after a few minutes had passed.

"Uh, yeah...just some...exploring." Ryan was barely paying attention to her though and more so to the people outside, he was scared to death because they were entering the same town that he was wanted in.

"So what do you do?" Paige noticed how tense he was, but attempted to ignore it at first, she had a pistol on her hip anyway.

"I...work." Ryan would have quickly made something up, but his mind was focused on one thing - and it was avoiding the possibility of getting either caught or killed.

"Interesting...something wrong Ryan?" She placed her left hand on her hip where her pistol was kept as her suspicion began to rise.

Lucc saw this and sat up quickly as he readied to flash her at any second.


	22. Facing The Problem

Ryan didn't respond to Paige's rising suspicion, but he knew she'd caught onto him. He saw Lucc sit up and eventually did look over at her since he knew it had to be for a reason.

"Who are you? For real…" Paige had pulled the SUV over onto the side of the road and gripped her pistol, she then began to slowly pull it out of the holster that it was in. Ryan saw her hand movement and decided not to let this go any farther, if she made him leave the vehicle he'd technically be able to walk to his house from here anyway, but it would be riskier.

"A-Alright alright...the police are looking for me here, b-but I'm not a criminal!" Ryan knew she wouldn't believe that.

"What did you do?" She froze her hand and watched his every movement as well as Lucc's, nothing could be trusted.

Ryan had to tell her the truth, there was no other way around this that wouldn't make him look like a criminal, and he had nothing to hide anymore. "I...work for a time travel company and I saw and know some things I was never supposed to. The police, some gang and the company is all after me...to kill me." Ryan held his breath, not knowing how she'd take this information. After a few moments of silence she responded.

"What's the name of the company?" Paige asked and loosened the grip her hand had on her pistol.

"It's called timə, and I'm not doing such a good job at getting away from them." Ryan exhaled quietly and leaned back against the passenger seat.

"I...work for the same company." Paige held up a black keycard that she had in her pocket, the same one that Ryan had to get into the pods. "My partner and I travel to future eras and collect as you do. You must have seen something in one of them didn't you?" She'd completely let go of her pistol and eyed him with intent and curiosity now.

Even Lucc was surprised, at least he didn't have to flash her now, but he had no problem doing it if he had to either.

"Pretty much...but I'm not trying to run anymore, I found some base in 3065. I think they're setting up secret areas in different eras...I know something's up. I need to get to the source and find out what's going before I'm dead." Ryan explained and showed her his keycard for a moment - even though she seemed to believe him already. He'd told her everything while only hoping he could trust her with it.

"I could drop you off at timə's main building." Paige was unsure if she wanted to get deeply involved with helping Ryan, she felt bad but it seemed like a dangerous situation.

"I'd appreciate that a lot, thank you. I still need to stock up back home really quickly first." Ryan said and sighed with relief, he gave her the address to his house now and Paige began to drive again. What were the odds? Meeting another timə employee that decided that she wanted to help him out. Ryan felt a bit better now - until the SUV stopped behind a line of about 15 other vehicles.

"Huh, what's going on up there? I'll check it out." Paige got out of the SUV for a moment and looked ahead at what was stopping the natural flow of traffic before getting back in. "Bad news, looks like the police are searching the inside of all vehicles up ahead. Possibly for you." She looked back at a few vehicles that were behind them which stopped her from reversing even if she wanted to. "I don't think it'd be wise to even try to drive the other way, it may draw unnecessary attention to us." Paige moved the SUV up a little to follow after the moving line of cars in effort to blend in.

"Wh-what should I do?" He began panicking again, his heart raced as he looked ahead.

Paige looked to the right over the railings of the thin street they were on and saw a short wall that stretched along the whole street with a line of houses on the other side. "You can probably hop that wall without being noticed, but you have to do it now before we get any closer. You don't have much time. Get to your house quickly and I'll meet you there." She moved up in the line some more.

"Alright…" Ryan opened the passenger door and hopped out with Lucc while staying low so that he was barely seen above the cars. He felt eyes on him, probably from people inside of their vehicles that were in line, but Ryan ignored it, he had to.

Lucc acted as a look out and made sure they weren't noticed by the wrong people as they quickly made their way to the red brick wall that was over the metal railing and hopped it.

Ryan kept low and sat by the wall, he was in someone's backyard. "Come on Lucc, we need to get to the street." He quietly made his way to the front of the house with Lucc and saw that he was relatively close to his home. "We're in luck, now let's hurry before something else goes wrong." They began walking down the sidewalk, fortunately no one was outside as it was nearly dark. Ryan was still reasonably paranoid the entire time they were walking to his house and was constantly listening and looking around for any officers.

The SUV was parked in Ryan's driveway once they'd gotten to his house and he saw Paige get out and close the driver's door. "Well, I see you two made it here in one piece." She walked up to them and looked at the house for a moment.

"Thank you for the guidance, I was in no condition to have thought of a solution earlier." Ryan replied and glanced at her figure now that he had the chance, she had on tight, white colored jeans and a long sleeved white shirt. It reminded Ryan to change his own clothes. He entered his house and invited Paige inside as well.

"Ryan, what's this about?" She was helping him without fully knowing why she was or what his plan was at all.

"I want to know. I just want to know what's really going on. If they want me this badly then I'll go up there myself. I know I saw things I wasn't meant to see but all of this...it's too much, there's obviously something serious going on." He explained before entering his room and opening his closet. "Of course...they took all of my weapons." Ryan groaned, he left his pistol behind and now had nothing to defend himself with.

"Just take some of ours in the trunk, my partner and I won't mind."

That was an offer Ryan wouldn't hesitate to take up and couldn't afford to refuse, mainly because having a weapon was probably going to be necessary at some point.

"The police didn't mind that you had guns in the back of your trunk?" Ryan laughed a little at the thought.

"At first they did, until I proved who I work for. I don't think that would have worked out for you though." Paige grinned and leaned against the doorframe to his room.

"Very funny." Ryan closed his closet door and sighed. "Well, I guess that was all I came here for. Just let me change into some different clothes and I'll be ready to go."

"All right, I'll wait for you out front."


	23. Arriving at Timə

Once she left, Ryan slipped into some black jeans and a matching colored shirt and gray jacket. After he finished he stretched his arms out a bit while in his new clothes. "I hope I don't regret this Lucc…" Though Ryan knew he would later. "Let's go." Ryan walked out of his house without a second thought and got into the passenger seat of Paige's SUV along with Lucc laying in his lap again.

"Ready? Hope this all goes smoothly." She started the engine and glanced over at him.

Ryan nodded in response to her question, "I hope so too." He leaned back against the seat and draped his arms over Lucc after strapping his seatbelt on. "Why's your partner still asleep? Ryan asked while looking behind him in the backseat where the male was asleep.

"He's stuck in a lighter form of hypersleep, something went wrong during our traveling unfortunately; his genetic makeup increases the chance of it happening. He should be up in a few hours or so." Paige took the SUV onto the freeway and shifted in her seat to get comfortable. "So, what made you want to work with this company?" She didn't want the long drive to be awkward and figured she may as well get to know the person she was helping.

"Well both of my parents kind of disowned me because I didn't want to carry on their legacy,. I mean I guess I shouldhave but I was more interested in studying history. Our past and some things that could possibly within our future...I was always looking into the future. I didn't want to run my parent's pokémart, I wanted to do and be something bigger than that. So I applied for this test job at the time and got accepted. It was a huge risk to just leave my home region for an unstable job, but I wasn't happy back home anyway. I left last year once I turned eighteen and haven't looked back ever since." Ryan grinned over at her, it was nice to tell someone about his life who wanted to listen.

"That's great, sad...but great. I'm glad you chose to take your own path and be happy."

"Yeah, but now...now I wish I would have been working at that pokémart instead." Ryan chuckled to himself and heard Paige giggle quietly.

"You'll be alright Ryan, I'll go in there with you. Maybe they're willing to forgive." She was uncertain about that but maybe it would help reassure him either way.

"And if they don't?"

"Well, I guess we'll have to cross that road once we get there...but I think it'll go alright." Paige exited the freeway and drove onto a dark road that lead to a small town with only a few buildings occupying it. "Coming up on it, about five minutes off." She warned in order to prepare him.

Lucc, however, was already prepared. He had a few helpful features within his lens that were on his side and his own swift movements and instincts. He just didn't know what exactly to expect or what the outcome would be, if only his lens had a feature that could give him insight about the distant future.

"Okay, we're here." Paige parked the SUV next to a wide, tall white building and stepped out of it. Ryan followed and met her at the trunk. She opened it and then opened a brown box that was inside. "Take this pistol just in case, it's full-auto so be careful with recoil...and try to keep it out of sight if you can." Paige handed it to him and Ryan nodded in response while fitting it into his back pocket and covering it well with his shirt. "Alright, let's go then." She sighed and closed the trunk, making sure to lock the vehicle's doors with her partner inside and approached the building's heavy, slidable door with Ryan and Lucc next to her.

Paige scanned her keycard on the reader that was next to the door and waited a moment, there was a camera above the door that let security visually approve of employees before letting them in. It opened a few moments later, a brightly lit hallway with white walls now revealed to them. "Come on." Paige pulled Ryan by his arm as she walked through and down the hall with Lucc trotting next to them. "Just tell them what they want to hear. That's all." She spoke quietly and lightly squeezed his arm before letting it go. Once they made it to the end of the hall, they were greeted by a man that met them at the door.

Ryan noticed something about him immediately, he was wearing the same exact outfit that the employees in 3065 were wearing. Yeah, Ryan definitely knew too much.

"Follow." The agent blankly stated and took them to another door up ahead, unlocked it and walked away after slightly pushing it open.

"I guess...that means we can go inside, this is his office. Jared's." Paige looked over at Ryan, hoping he'd act casually.

"I've only once talked to him over the phone after I applied for this job." Ryan tried to keep calm while his heart raced.

"Just remember what I told you Ryan; it'll go well..." She slowly pushed open the door the rest of the way and sure enough, there he was, standing by his desk.

"There he is, the infamous kid and his wolf." Ryan swallowed as Jared spoke and took a few steps into the room. Paige closed the door and stood behind both Ryan and Lucc. "I'll give it to you, you managed to either evade or successfully deal with anything or anyone I threw at you. Why you came up here? Beats me, but you only made everything easier-"

"I came up here because...because I have nothing more to hide, I was only defending my life." Ryan cut Jared off, to which he snickered.

"Nothing to hide? I believe we both know what you saw Ryan, what images are now burned into your head. You're now a threat to my company, you jeopardize my success!" Jared began to raise his voice, but Ryan wasn't too afraid anymore. He was more upset and confused if anything.

"That's unfair! You must be doing something illegal if it's such a big deal."

Paige winced once Ryan said that, he'd already slipped up.

"Oh yes, yes...of course, saving humanity is illegal...I guess I could tell you, it won't matter soon enough anyway. I'm trying to preserve our future, I'm establishing civilization in the future so that we don't die out. If I don't do this, all humans and all pokémon will be wiped."

"Then why are you trying to hide it like this? Why are you willing to kill everyone in your path if this is supposedly something good?" Ryan had forgotten about Paige's advice, he wanted answers.

"The government of this region won't let me be, I'm under their watch almost constantly. The last agent that had gotten suspicious? I had to have her killed recently, it's just what I have to do. A few lives for a good cause, or billions taken when they shut my entire company down?"

Ryan suddenly remembered Melissa and how Lucc had brought home a card stating that she worked for some agency. "That...that was you? You got her killed! You're sick; evil...I know there's something else behind all of this and you're gonna tell me!" Ryan didn't realize that he'd taken an extra step forward.

"I think I've told you enough already Ryan. I've no more time. I've wasted a lot on you as it is. Before I'm caught, I need to finish my mission, and once I am found out I need to be out of this era. I'm sorry it had to end this way." Jared swiftly pulled his pistol out of his right pocket as Ryan did the same with quick reaction. They both had their weapons aimed at each other and simultaneously fired them.


	24. The Race Against Time

Neither Paige nor Lucc did anything, they didn't have to. They watched Jared fall to the ground after he was hit in the side of the neck. Ryan had stumbled back but had managed to stay standing. "D-Do you know...wh-what you've done?" Jared winced in pain and firmly placed his right hand over the wound on his neck - though it didn't stop him from rapidly losing blood. "I h-hope you're...happy now, you ruined a-all of my work. M-My progress...my...plan..." Jared's voice drifted and his body fell limp not a second later.

Ryan lost his balance again and nearly fell over, he had to be severly injured.

Paige ran over once her shock had subsided and helped him slowly sit down on the floor. She leaned him back against the wall. "Were you shot?" She asked him and noticed that he was struggling to keep his eyes open. "No, no no don't pass out on me Ryan!" Paige had to try and keep him conscious; as she tried to search for the wound, she luckily pushed on his chest a bit and felt wetness. After looking at her hand she saw that it was blood. He'd been shot in the chest and that was fatal most of the time. Paige had to do something quickly, but she heard people just outside of the door that there was no time to deal with. Fortunately for her, Lucc was already on it.

As soon as the door opened, Lucc quickly analyzed the situation. Four guards - all armed with pistols. Lucc swiftly struck with a quick attack and sweeped the guy in the front's legs before realizing that combat aid would definitely help in this situation. He turned it on within seconds and saw another fang box appear on the guard on the far left's hand. Lucc didn't know why it appeared there out of all places but he went for it with full trust within the system. Lucc pushed up off of his hind legs and sunk his teeth into the man's wrist just as he began to raise his arm up. It caused him to drop his pistol, combat aid must accurately predict movements from opponents before they do them. Lucc then saw a yellow arrow appear in front of him that was pointing to the right with DODGE in bold letters above it, so he did just that and heard a loud gunshot follow his evasive action to the left of him. 'I just...dodged a bullet.' Lucc thought to himself, he felt completely invincible at the time.

As he closely followed the instructions that were given to him by combat aid, the four guards were on the ground and unconscious in no time. Lucc exhaled and walked back over to Paige.

"His pulse is weakening, I need to go get something to at least to stop the blood loss or it'll be too late...stay here with him." Paige got up quickly and stepped over the bodies of the four guards Lucc had recently taken care of. "Come on, where am I going..." She was working under a time limit with an unknown end. Ryan definitely wouldn't last much longer in his current state.

Paige ran down the hallway but there were only a few locked doors to her left and right. Other than that, there was only a transfer to the next hallway, walls on each side of her. "Dammit!" There had to be unlocked rooms somewhere in this building...Paige then remembered the two doors that were on the outside of it and kept running down the hall until she made it back outside, afterwards hurrying over to the left side and seeing a white door with a heavy lock hanging from it, Paige didn't have a key for that, but she did have another way of getting it unlocked. A noisy alternative.

She took out her pistol and aimed it at the heavy lock, shooting it off easily and quickly pushing the door open. Inside was just what she was looking for, a lot of futuristic items were stored in here, but Paige knew exactly what to look for. It was called CTX-252, it held blue liquid that created a frozen layer of ice over any open wound which temporarily stopped bleeding and sealed it closed. She had overheard confidential talk about the item the last time she was here while a meeting was going on.

Paige opened various cabinets, she saw different items and even a few weapons that obviously weren't from this timeframe. Alll she knew was that this was taking way too long. The more time she spent in here, the more blood Ryan was losing, but she luckily remembered something else from that meeting…something that was said because of how differential and important this tool was compared to anything else that was ever brought back from the future. It had to be placed somewhere special. "Behind a shelf!" Paige hurried over to the only brown shelf that was in the small storage room, it sat against the middle of the wall at the end of the room. She held her breath as she pushed it out of the way to reveal a small hole in the wall - and sure enough, the injector was there. Paige grabbed it with her right hand and looked at the small digital screen on the front, "three injections left. That's more than enough."

She quickly ran out of the storage room only to bump into an employee that didn't look too friendly. Paige immediately felt something roughly strike the right side of her body and she moaned out in pain before shoving him off of her.

"Liked how that felt? You damn traitor!" Without warning he charged at her and tackled her onto the ground. Paige couldn't possibly fight him off, he was much stronger than she was, but Paige still had one more chance to save herself while she was pinned on her back. The guard began to raise his baton but before he could land any hits on her, Paige reached up and injected the needle of the CTX right into his forehead. It froze over his brain and killed him within seconds as he yelled out in pain.

Paige wiggled out from under him and pushed him onto his back with her shoes before getting up and running back into the building through the main entrance. She hoped that time was still on her side.


	25. What now?

Ryan opened his eyes to daylight. He was laying in a bed inside of a small bedroom and had no idea where he was. He attempted to sit up, but immediately felt a sharp pain in his chest and laid back down while clutching it in pain. Ryan remembered now, him and Jared had exchanged shots; Jared was killed by it. Ryan's body then fell into shock shortly after being shot as well. He forgot everything following the event.

The door opened a few moments later and Ryan saw Paige enter. "Oh, you're up now. How's your chest feeling?" She sat down by him at the edge of the bed.

"I can't really move yet, but it doesn't hurt otherwise...how long have I been out?" He asked.

"Just overnight, Lucc and I got you out of there, but we aren't safe for long. You're at my home." She said while remembering that she nearly forgot to show him the device that was used to save him. "Oh! I used this to...basically preserve you, it sealed your wound by freezing it over or else you may not have survived. I think it's pretty neat." Paige explained while letting him see it before stuffing it back into her pocket.

"Thank you Paige, a lot...but we can't just forget about timə so quickly. I mean sure, Jared is gone now, but the bases are still out there. They may be able to continue whatever the plan was without him."

"Ryan, we stopped the main cause and you need to rest, do you really want to go that much deeper into this anyway? You can run from it all now, you can finally get away...why would you dive right back into it?" She eyed him with just a bit of confusion in her gaze.

"I know but- I just don't feel complete, I thought I would after this, but I know there's more to what Jared was doing; I feel like it's our responsibility to find it since we're the only ones that truly know about it." He knew Paige likely wouldn't understand, she probably thought he was crazy. Maybe he was, but Ryan didn't care. He had to know.

"Even if we did go back, how would we find anything else out?" Paige wanted to know what he had in mind, especially since as soon as it's found out that Jared was dead, the building would soon be inaccessible.

"We'd search around his office for answers first, then go on from there. There has to be something in there Paige, and if we can somehow find out and shut the bases down…" As she listened, Paige did gain a bit of interest in what he was saying. It would be risky though.

"I don't know Ryan, but you need rest. We can discuss this later."

"If anyone else gets their hands on whatever info is in there, who knows what'll happen? We have to be the ones that get to it first." He knew that he couldn't necessarily get up and go right now, but they couldn't let too much time pass.

"I get it Ryan, but you still need to rest this out for a while. We'll see how you feel soon okay?"

And all Ryan could do was give in, watching her exit the room. He was in no shape to head back out as much as he wanted to.

Lucc had been sitting on the front porch of the house, he knew his trainer was fine, but there were two others that may not be. Silva and Aura, he'd love to see either of them again. He looked around at the surrounding houses and the woods that stretched beyond them. Silva could be anywhere and Lucc only had a few ideas about where she could be, it was either the police or that odd masked gang that had her. He'd find out either way.

As evening began to set in, Ryan sat up in bed after falling asleep for a few hours. He sat up, Ryan felt happier already. There was still some pain felt but not enough to hinder any movement. He was able to get off of the bed but only sat up on the edge of it for now,

"I'm guessing you feel a lot better now huh?" Paige stood in the doorway.

"Yeah, but I forgot to ask...was the bullet extracted from out of my chest?" Ryan was so worried about timə that he forgot to care about himself, but he figured it had been done.

"My partner got that done and stitched it up well...here" She grinned at him and turned her head away in order to call his name out and he showed up a few moments later.

Ryan noticed that he looked pretty tired in his eyes, but that may have something to do with the fact that he was recently in some form of hypersleep. "Luis...is it? Thank you..." Ryan recalled Paige giving a name.

"Yep, glad you're awake and well now." he replied. "So you wanna go back to that building eh? Bad news, those Scorpio guys just got there."

"Wh-what? No! They're the worst possible people that could be in control of...anything!" Ryan winced from a sharp pain he suddenly felt in his chest after the slight rise in his tone.

"Calm down, we can't just rush on in there now. That's a big gang." Luis said, and he was right.

Lucc had overheard some commotion and took a spot near the doorway.

"We also can't let them know of Jared's plans, especially now that the ability to time travel is readily available to them! They're heartless people too, who knows what they'll do with that much power?"


	26. Infiltration and Stealth

"We aren't against you Ryan, we just don't know how to approach this situation." Paige assured him, she just wasn't sure about it.

"Then you'll help me do this, we can use stealth. Lucc has nanotech, I'm sure we could pull this off. But to just leave this alone? It's not right and it could affect us too, along with everyone in every region." Ryan tried to get the idea into their heads, if he had to he'd go alone with Lucc he would, but there was obviously more strength in numbers.

A deep silence fell over the room, an obvious confliction.

"Alright…" Paige sighed and looked down at the floor for a moment, as if hesitant to agree.

"Guess I'm in too, but it's a death wish." Luis had also agreed; Ryan was relieved by this.

"Thank you, both of you." Ryan felt a lot more relief now.

"We have to go now then...while they're still setting up. We have more weapons stored in here." Paige gathered a few automatic assault rifles and pistols that she had stored in the back of her closet and gave both Ryan and Lewis one of each along with herself. They slung it over their soldiers by the strap that was attached to the rifles.

"I hope I don't have to kill anyone else, I've done a lot of damage already…" Ryan said with guilt in his tone as he got in the passenger seat of Paige's SUV with Lucc.

"You think you're going up against a huge gang like this and not have to kill anyone?" Luis chuckled a bit and got comfortable in the backseat.

"Good point, I guess I don't really know what I'm expecting." Ryan watched the scenery fly by as they drove back towards the dreaded building.

"None of us do, this is a terrible idea...but you're right, if we don't try. No one else will." Paige leaned against the backseat; the ride was silent as all three of them knew what they had to do, but there was also a heavy possibility that they could fail and lose their lives at the same time.

Lucc however, was fearless. He wanted vengeance - for the Scorpios to pay, and they would pay generously.

The drive didn't last for too long, eventually Paige stopped the SUV a mile or so before they got to the building near the surrounding woods since she saw movement outside of it.

"They must be fortifying the inside still…come on, we're on foot from here." She hopped out of the vehicle with Ryan and Luis following.

"We can't wait for them to finish setting up, we have to catch them by surprise." Ryan watched the people that seemed to be carrying things inside of the white building.

"Right, but we also have to get over there without being noticed."

While Paige and Ryan spoke, Lucc put his zoom lensfeature to good use. He saw exactly what they were hauling in, weapons, explosives and some other packages that he couldn't exactly make out.

"Come on Lucc!" Ryan snapped Lucc out of what he was doing, they'd already started heading off through a back route to the building. Lucc shut his nanocam off and caught up to them quickly.

They traveled a few miles through the backroads and woods until they reached the backside of the tall white building and stood in front of a double-door.

"Alright, this is it. We can leave this all alone, head back and disappear forever...or we can go in there and risk everything." Paige looked over at Ryan as he stood to her left.

"As much as I love the first option Paige, we can't do it." Ryan wasn't too enthusiastic about this situation either, he was beginning to wonder what he was ever thinking, while on the contrary knowing it was all necessary to stop the Scorpio's from running time travel anyway.

"I don't think we should all go in there, it'd be easier to spot us." Luis suggested, and he was right. There was more room for stealth if they had less people inside.

"Right...Ryan. You, myself and Lucc will enter. Luis, keep watch out here and text me if you see anything out of the ordinary." The plan was kind of set up now. Kind of.

"We need to quietly make our way back into Jared's office, may even meet the person that leads these weirdos." Paige added and walked up to the door while holding her keycard. She slipped it into the necessary slot by the left side of the door until it beeped twice before she pulled it out. "Just stay quiet, and be ready to shoot only when necessary." Paige told Ryan and slowly pushed open the door, she was thankful it didn't creak at all.

There was a short hallway in front of them that led to another set of doors.

"Guessing that's the real way in." Ryan stayed by Paige's side as they walked towards the next set.

Luis silently closed the door behind them and held his rifle firmly, he would be prepared for trouble, but hopefully there wasn't any due to him standing by the backside of the building.

"I won't lie Ryan, I'm pretty scared…" Paige had to calm herself down inside, but couldn't stop her heart from pounding in her chest already.

"I am too, but we're going to do what we came here to do. We have to and we'll both survive." Both her and Ryan were fairly young, it wasn't surprising that they were afraid of what was to come.

Lucc had tried to use a few of the features on his nanolens but it wasn't working properly this time, all he could see was jumbled static in his right eye. Some type of interference must have been affecting his abilities; that would hinder his ability to properly help Ryan and Paige. He walked behind them while trying to get it to work.

Paige used the keycard again to open the next set of doors and waited a moment before she pushed it open. "C'mon." She held her rifle tightly and was prepared to shoot at any moment.

Ryan was as well but he felt a lot more guilt and hesitance in killing at this point. Enough to make him puke.

They walked through the dimly lit hallway with doors on both sides of the walls going all the way down. It was a bit nerve wracking. Any of the doors could open at anytime and get them caught if one of the rooms happened to be occupied, but they continued onward until they got through the next set of doors.

They were now in a large sized and empty room with stacked boxes lining the white walls and even blocking a few windows.

"This was the room where occasional meetings were held. I remember this red carpeting. These guys must have gutted it out and are using it to store these...boxes." Paige looked around at the boxes almost completely covering most of the walls. "What are they up to…" She let her curiosity get the best of her as she went to take one of the boxes down off of one of the stacks.

"Careful Paige!" Ryan harshly whispered to her while he sat by the door with Lucc.

"Wired bombs...why would they need these?" Paige shook her head a bit and wondered, this only meant even more that they had to go through with this mission. The Scorpios were obviously planning something sinister, but she didn't have too long to think as the door in front of them began to swing open. Paige dropped the box and scrambled for her rifle while Ryan already had his aimed in.

Lucc could only be ready to dart at whoever it was. Without his lens functioning, it made this a lot more inconvenient.


	27. Plan B

There was little to no time to react to whomever was opening that door, the only thing Paige had managed to do was grab a decent enough hold of her rifle in order to shoot. What came through the door were two masked figures that were completely unready to attack at the moment as their hands were full with a few boxes. When they dropped them and tried quickly grabbing for their own guns, Ryan verbally stopped them instead of shooting as Paige was about to do, but he did keep his rifle aimed at them.

"D-Don't!...Stop!" Fortunately it was enough to freeze them in their tracks. "Get down on the floor, n-now! And hands behind your back!" Ryan obviously sounded nervous, but they had no choice but to listen since he did currently have an advantage over them. Once they laid down on their stomachs, Ryan went over and pulled their pistols out of their holsters so that they were unarmed before tossing them on the ground a few feet away.

"And not a single shot fired, I'm impressed Ryan. I was just going to panic and shoot." Paige walked over a few moments later and kneeled by them. "So what are we gonna do with them?" She asked and looked up at Ryan,

"I'm...not sure-" but before he could finish that sentence about four more of them had barged through the door with weapons drawn. This caught both Paige and Ryan by surprise and they had no choice but to freeze up and await their fate, but no shots were fired...though they were yelled at in some kind of foreign language. "What are they saying Paige?" Ryan harshly whispered as he had no idea what they were wanting him to do and could desperately use an answer.

"I don't know! Just...just put your hands up!" She figured that was their best bet as of now to show that they would comply, so she dropped her rifle on the floor beneath her and slowly raised her hands up into the air, Ryan doing the same. It seemed to do the trick as two of the masked figures then went behind them and roughly began handcuffing their wrists behind their backs.

"Lucc...run." Ryan looked behind himself so he could see his pokémon.

Lucc was hesitant to just leave his trainer and Paige behind. It didn't feel right at all.

"Go!" Ryan said loud enough for Lucc to finally listen, and so he ran back through the doors that they entered the room from with a few of the masked people chasing after him.

"He'll get away…" Ryan said this to himself as he was held by his arm and leaded through the set of doors that proceeded forward along with Paige. "Where do you think they're taking us?" Ryan looked over at her.

"A quick death if we're lucky."

"And if we're unlucky?"

"A torture room."

Lucc had ran back to the hallway with various doors lining the walls and figured he'd lose them easily if he hid in a random room. He skidded to a stop halfway down the corridor and luckily a door to the left that was slightly opened had caught his eye. He slipped through and let it close behind him, hearing the footsteps of the two people that were chasing him run down the hallway. He sighed in relief and sat down in the dimly lit room to rest and lay low for a moment.

"Lucc?"

"Ah!" He flinched as the weak sounding voice startled him at first - then it sounded familiar. Lucc turned around to see Silva sitting by the corner of a wall, a part of him was heartbroken since she wasn't jubilant as she usually was; that was how he was used to seeing her. Though she had every right not to be. "Silva…" He took a few steps towards her and saw that her right hind leg was chained to the wall. "I'm so glad you're alive, but are you okay?" Lucc eyed her body up and down a few times, all he noticed were a few dirty spots.

"I'm fine, I just didn't know if you'd ever come looking for me…"

"Of Course I would Silva, you're my best friend. Now come on, we have to go save Ryan and get out of here. Let me see your leg." Silva stood up and outstretched her leg as far as it could go. Lucc then, with precision used crunch on the fortunately thin-like chain which caused it to break apart easily. He looked up at her and turned towards the door. "Stay behind me Silva, I'll protect you."

Meanwhile, Ryan and Paige were now being taken down the corridor that led to Jared's office. "Odd, why would they be taking us this route?..." Paige was both terrified and confused, but managed to stay calm enough.

"Something must be up, guess we'll see." Ryan had no idea why either, but they didn't have to wonder for too long once they made it to the door of Jared's office and were shoved onto the ground in front of it by who was holding them. The people left abruptly after that as if nothing had ever happened. A few moments later and the door to Jared's office opened while both Ryan and Paige were still on the ground.

"I've been expecting you two."


	28. Unknown setup

"I'm very pleased you two could make it, been watching you over the cameras. Come on in."

Paige looked up at what seemed to be the leader of whatever this strange gang was, he wore a red mask that resembled that of a samurai. She slowly stood up from her odd sitting position before hesitantly making her way into the office, Ryan behind her.

The door closed behind them and the man took Jared's seat while both Ryan and Paige stood a few feet away from the front of the desk. "I'm going to tell you what you two did." He began in a showy, mysterious-like accented voice and pulled the chair up so that he sat closer to the desk. "You killed a bad man...with good intention. Anyone who stepped foot in his path to success, even the slightest threat, dead. His goal though, oh his end goal...I won't deny it. It was thoughtful and selfless to say the least. Jared was a genius, he was just...handling everything in the wrong manner. You two did exactly what I expected you to do, you came through and ridded of the only man standing in my way so that I could take over this operation...and I guess I do owe you for it. It was something I could never bring myself to do." He then stood up from the chair, his hands hidden behind his back.

"You and yours will be granted protection from my men and women - only under one condition. My team and I have to begin overtaking the bases that are being built in the future eras as soon as possible. I have the plans and documents that tell me everything in order to do so both efficiently and quickly. You would come along and aid us throughout the process, how does that sound?" Both Ryan and Paige stayed silent for a few moments, it was risky and dangerous for sure, but they didn't really have much of a say in this. "I know you two have been through a lot and we need to finish setting up here anyway. Why don't I have you escorted into one of many rooms we've refitted as sleeping quarters and we revisit this later tonight?" He suggested, at least he appeared to care. Either way, any rest would be nice.

"Yes...that could work, we have been through a lot recently and aren't currently in a clear state of mind." Ryan replied.

Paige looked over at him and felt somewhat relieved by Ryan taking over so she didn't have to.

"Perfect, you can call me Yan if you'd like. I've also caught wind that your pokémon and friend are here. I've had them stored in the same room you will be taken to. We'll discuss more later, see you two in a while." Yan then picked up a talkie that was on the desk and spoke into it after pressing a button down on the side of it in that same foreign language that was heard when they were captured recently.

Two of Yan's members entered the office after that and pulled Ryan and Paige along by their arms since they were still handcuffed. They were uncuffed only once they got to the door of the sleeping quarters, which took some time to get to from Jared's office.

"Finally…" Paige said after they were placed into the room while rubbing her wrists with her hands. The door seemed to have been locked from the outside and there were no windows apparent in the room, so no escape plan this time.

"I was really surprised they didn't immediately gun me down after finding me." Luis grinned from the bed that he was sitting on at the far end of the room and looked over at his partners as they entered. There were four small beds neatly set in a single row across the small room with a small bathroom at the end of it.

"They didn't because we may have a deal set in place." Paige went over to give him a tight hug and sat next to him to ask about what had happened.

Lucc and Silva were laying on the bed to the left of Luis's. It made Ryan just a bit happier to see that they were okay. "I knew you'd get away Lucc, at least long enough to find Silva huh?" Ryan stood over the bed and patted them both on the head. "I'm really sorry for leaving you behind Silva, won't happen ever again." He leaned down and gave her a light kiss on her head.

"Well I'm glad we're all together in one piece, but we're obviously too late. They got to the plans first." Paige sighed hopelessly.

"And we don't know what these guys are up to either, but what are our options? We can't take on a huge organization." Ryan sat down on the unoccupied bed by the door.

"Well if we're helping them overtake bases, they may arm us. Let's hope I guess…" Paige shrugged her shoulders and laid down on her back on the bed next to the one that Ryan was in since Lucc and Silva had the one near Luis.

"What are you guys even talking about?" Luis asked, clueless since he hadn't actually gone inside with Paige and Ryan.

"Ugh...you'll find out soon enough Lu, we should actually rest for now." Paige went on to suggest and yawned. That wasn't argued about at all since everyone was worn out.

Lucc and Silva had used each other for warmth instead of messing with the blanket under them, and neither Ryan nor Paige bothered with it. Luis did though since he got cold easily.

Even after 30 minutes or so though, Ryan couldn't fall asleep. He was busy overthinking about pretty much everything. His parents back home and the different routes he could have taken with jobs, how many he'd killed and how his family would feel about that, the unreal situation that he was in and the one they were about to be in. All while having no idea what was in store for them. He sat up in the middle of his bed and looked around the mainly dark room other than the dim ceiling light above them.

"Can't sleep huh? I only got a few minutes myself until it turned into a nightmare." Paige got up from her bed and went to sit over by Ryan after he didn't answer.

"Listen...you're probably having a hard time, a harder time than what Luis and I are having. I'm here for you though, we all are."

"I can't get over what I've done, and the thing is I think it's growing on me." Ryan held his breath so it didn't turn into another mental breakdown.

"What is?"

"This...senseless violence, I never wanted this for my life." He swallowed hard and knew he couldn't talk about it anymore, or else he'd probably end up waking everyone which would be pretty embarrassing for him.

"Ryan, it's grown on Luis and I too. It's become a part of our lifestyle in this line of work." She spoke in a soft and quiet tone.

"I don't want to be that person, but I'm afraid it's what I'm turning into." Ryan took a few deep breaths to calm himself down and held his face with his hands for a few moments.

"I know, trust me. I know, but you'll have to face it. It's the only way we're going into what's coming and it's also the only way we're getting out of it. You just have to justify it in your mind, these aren't good people. No one that you had to kill were good people, were they?" She looked over at him.

"No…" Was all he could respond with, Paige was right after all.

"Okay then, push through. For me at least, will ya?" She wrapped her arms around his waist and gave him a gentle hug to comfort him if she could.

"I'll try."


	29. Preparation

A few soft knocks were heard at the door of the small room. Ryan opened his eyes slowly and groaned quietly, he wished he would have woken up back at home, part of him did anyway. Paige was curled up on her side near the right end of the bed while Ryan was in the middle. She must have fallen asleep before she could make it back to the next bed. Ryan sat up quietly so that he didn't wake anyone and got up from the bed to go over to the door. Not like he could open it from his side anyway, but after a few moments the door slowly opened, it was Yan.

"Just who I wanted to see, glad you were the one that came to the door. Come with me Ryan." He already began to head down the hallway which left Ryan hurrying to catch up with him. This time, they didn't head back to the office, but into Jared's personal time travel room. Yan easily input the 12 digit code and closed the door behind him and Ryan once inside. "He was after you. Everyone that you killed, including a few of my people...had something to do with Jared." Yan stood by the computer and logged onto it.

Ryan silently stayed by the door that they came through as if it granted him any safety.

"He wrote about you, all of the events. Every murder he had been responsible for, he wrote it down in his journal. His mental state was spiraling downhill, declining, and even he had no idea what he was doing at one point. You know what caused him to attempt at having you killed Ryan? Paranoia. Jared was mainly fighting himself in his own head, he didn't want you dead...but you had to be killed at the same time. It was the only way for him to remain at peace mentally." Yan explained and powered on the time pod. "It's all okay now Ryan, you've given him eternal peace." He turned to face Ryan from near the pod. "We leave tonight to overtake the first base. Everyone will be split into small groups...you will be the leader of your team if alright with you?" Yan appeared to be giving him a choice, which Ryan nodded to. In reality he felt that Paige should lead or something, but saying no to this guy could possibly lead to things that Ryan didn't want to necessarily test any time soon. "Perfect, you'll be taken back to your room for now. We leave in two hours at midnight, break the news to your team; once ready we'll equip everyone on your end with what is necessary for the mission. Thank you Ryan." Yan then turned back and went over to typing on the computer once again.

Ryan exited the room quickly, and sure enough another one from Yan's gang was waiting for him and took Ryan back to the room again. The door closed and locked behind him. It seemed like everyone was asleep except for Lucc currently, so Ryan would wait until everyone was awake to break the news. He grinned over at Lucc and laid on the bed that Paige was sleeping on a few hours ago before she had fallen asleep on his.

Lucc was curled up on the mid-section of his bed, though his head was lifted. Silva asleep right under him while snuggled up to his furry chest. He was glad to have his friend back, but a part of him was still missing. Aura was still out there in the distant future and Lucc could only hope that she was safe. If anything happened to her he'd pack the guilt onto himself, he knew he would.

An hour later and Ryan woke back up, of course everyone would still be sleeping when it was this late at night. He got off of the bed and tapped Paige's shoulder until she shifted around in her sleep enough to wake her up. Ryan then did the same to Luis, "sorry to wake you two, but we have to leave soon." He sat back down on his bed, the talking quickly woke Lucc back up after he'd recently dozed off.

"What?...leaving?" Paige slowly sat up and gathered composure while yawning.

"Yan told me he's preparing for us and his team to overtake a base tonight. He'll come and equip us when everything's ready. He said that I'd lead and that we'd be in our own group." Ryan spoke in a somewhat defeated tone, he was pretty beaten down emotionally after all.

"Wow, well that's quick...but we have each other, we'll protect each other at all costs and find a way out as soon as we see an opportunity, right Luis?" Paige looked over at him across the room.

"Of course, we'll be fine for sure as long we stick together." He replied to Paige and nodded a few times. The time flew by pretty quickly, there wasn't much chatter involved within such a dark and likely terrifying mission in front of them.

A knock at the room's door was heard again by all three of them; Ryan got up first to be at the door. He was going to be leading after all, so he gave himself some practice.

"I'll be back in ten minutes, equip yourselves with what's in these bags." Yan set three large black duffel bags onto the floor of the room and walked off after closing the door.

"Wonder what's in these." Ryan sighed and set them all on the bottom of his bed that was closest the door.

Paige walked over and slowly unzipped one of the bags. "Looks like some light armor...probably to somewhat protect us." She emptied the bag and set everything out on her bed. The armor was matte black in color and pretty thin for what it was, but Paige put it all on while Ryan, Luis and Lucc watched. The metal vest, the flexible metal gloves that extended up to her elbows and looked more like gauntlets, and the metal leggings that fit around the entirety of her legs up to her knees. She also slipped on the all black pair of running shoes with an odd LED indicator on the heel of each shoe. "Really light armor, not sure what it- huh...looks like I forgot something." Two bracelets that were at the bottom of the bag had caught Paige's eye. She reached down inside of the bag and grabbed them, inspecting them afterward. Metallic, shiny silver colored thin bracelets. Paige slipped them both onto her wrists. "They don't do seem to do mu- ah!" She gasped as they then firmly tightened around her wrists and began to generate a nearly silent and low pitched buzzing noise that only she could hear. While this was happening, she pulled at them in attempt to take them off - but they wouldn't budge.

"Paige, your eyes..they're glowing a bright purple!" Ryan was taken back as his own eyes widened at the sight.

"Looks more like pink to me." Luis added, which Ryan chose to ignore.

"Wh-What do you mean? Is that bad?!" She began to panic and examined the rest of her body for any other abnormal changes that she saw none of.

"Not at all, in fact it's quite the opposite." Yan stood in the doorway. Everyone was so preoccupied with the phenomenon that was happening with Paige that no one noticed Yan at the door until he spoke. They all turned to look at him. "It's a form of damage resistance. We call it the neon shield. It protects you from any pain you would usually receive from bullets and any melee attack while active. It was only testing itself and properly fitting to your wrist size this time. Usually, both rings would have to make contact with each other in order to activate...and keep in mind, it only lasts for ten minutes before needing a five minute self recharge. It notifies you before it dies by vibrating against your wrists. We don't have many of them, so I am giving them to your group as you are all more prone to dying. I can also see that this has hindered progress, which I understand...I'll be back in five minutes, be ready."


	30. Back to the Oasis

(Hazy- Cosmos...fits well while reading this chapter)

After Yan left, Ryan and Luis slipped on the armor and bracelets as Paige did, going through the same Neon phase that she had gone through. Though they were required to also wear a black long sleeved shirt and black jeans while Paige simply wore black armor over her white clothing. There had to be a reason for it.

Lucc nudged Silva's cheek with his muzzle a few times which woke her up as expected.

"Mmh?..." Was all she groaned out in response as she opened her eyes.

"Time to go Silva, you slept through a lot." Lucc sat up and shook out his fur while sighing, he noticed that his nanolens was still out. Hopefully it would work in the next era.

"Well, it's been so long since I've properly slept. Where are we going anyway?" Silva stretched out her ribbons before rubbing her eyes with them.

"Dominating some base loaded with guys that'll probably give us a huge fight. I don't want you having a thing to do with this though. I'll protec-" Lucc began, but Silva stopped him before he could complete what he was trying to say as she knew what was coming.

"No...I'm helping this time Lucc, I've overheard things while I was here. I know who got my trainer killed." Her face bearing a more serious look this time. Lucc was about to reply, but the door swung open quickly this time, it wasn't Yan but one of his people.

"Time to go, follow!" And so they did, all five of them down the halls until they reached the same backdoor that they came through when they first entered the building. Yan waited by the open doors.

"Don't try anything you'll regret." He handed them each standard assault rifles with a small bag of extra magazines for them. "We'll get our hands on better weapons once we take over the first base. Walk the path until you see a pod to take, they're preset with the desired era. Once you arrive, just follow my people." Yan nodded them off and continued handing out weapons as they took the dark path.

"These bracelets better do their job…" Paige inspected them a bit and mumbled while walking.

"I just hope we'll be on the winning team, if they lose, that means we lose too." Ryan walked by Paige's side, Luis lagging behind a bit. Lucc and Silva were somewhat in front due to their faster walking speed.

"You ok Luis? You've been acting odd lately, quiet even." Paige glanced back at him.

"Uh, yeah...just nervous is all." He ran his hand through his short brown hair and took a deep inhale.

"Alright, here we are." Ryan looked around at the field full of congregated time pods, even saw a few of them disappear into a burst of headache inducing bright white light that lingered for a few moments before dispersing. That signified that some of Yan's group had already taken a few of the pods.

"Two can occupy one pod, but pokémon are smaller. Luis and I will take one. Ryan, maybe you can take them and we meet up once in the next era?" Paige suggested, which made enough sense to Ryan.

"Sounds good, see you there." Ryan walked over and slid his keycard that was in his pocket into a slot on the side of a nearby timepod, waiting for Lucc and Silva to hop in before stepping in himself. "Huh, it's been a while hasn't it Lucc?" He grinned and looked at the year shown on the monitor. "3065 again? Guess he's going after the most vulnerable base first, probably the one with the hugest amount of work in progress." Ryan took a deep breath before he pulled the lever down.

The vibrations that ensued seemed to scare Silva as she tensed up. "It's okay Silva, just means we're getting to our destination." Lucc reassured her with perked ears, he was hoping that Aura was okay and that he could see her again.

The vibrations suddenly stopped and all went silent. "Alright bud." Ryan opened the door and looked outside to see what looked like near hundreds of groups making their way towards the direction of what had to be the oasis.

Ryan stepped outside of the pod onto the sandy terrain and closed the door behind Lucc and Silva. Any pods that came from back home spawned in and huddled around this area. "Lucc, you know a Vaporeon here right?" Ryan remembered and asked to which Lucc gave a nod to. "And she knows the Oasis right?"

Lucc nodded again.

"If you can get her, that'd help. We need all the help we can get...but hurry back." He watched Lucc quickly run off and shortly after felt a tap on his shoulder from behind. Ryan turned around to surprisingly see Paige and Luis.

"Glad we found each other so quickly, where's Lucc running off to?" Paige watched Lucc dart off across the sandy landscape.

"To bring back what'll help us get through what we're about to head into."

Lucc continued running across the vast field of sand under the night sky, he was running on pure adrenaline at this point, though he know he'd be pretty tired once he reached the grouped buildings where Aura resided. Lucc panted as he began to close in on the buildings after running for about five minutes. He slowed down to a trot once he reached them and caught his breath shortly. Lucc made his way into her building and sat by her closed bunker entrance, even pawed at it to generate some noise. No response. "Come on Aura…" He began to overthink already, imagining different scenarios in which he wasn't there to save her while she was in danger. Hopefully it was only his thoughts spazzing out on him, it would kill him if he wasn't able to see her again.

"Lucc?" His ears shot up quickly and he looked over at the entrance to the building to see Aura padding over to him. "Lucc, I…" Aura pressed her rubber-like cheek into his furry chest once she got over to him and closed her eyes for a moment as it gave her immediate comfort. "I really missed you." She sat and looked up at him.

"I did too Aura, I thought about you almost everyday." It made his heart beat heavier just by being in her presence; it was a good feeling. Lucc leaned down and lovingly nuzzled her head with his cheek. "Been well lately?" He asked as his tail lightly wagged a few times.

"Well enough, I'm surviving at least. Here for more collecting?" Aura would assume so since that's why he was here every other time.

"Uh, well no...something much worse this time, and my team and I could use your help with it. We're headed to the Oasis, and I know you know it like the back of your paw." He eyed her with deep intent, not only would she be a lot of help but he would get to spend some time by her side.

"Of course, but you have to tell me what's going on along the way." Aura stood up, ready to get going when he was.

"For sure." Lucc began to backtrack towards Ryan and the rest of group with Aura at his side. He told her nearly everything, about the scorpios, Jared and even about his group that she would meet soon enough. "Up there!" Lucc saw pods and a lot of Yan's people walking across the sand in the distance. Ryan saw them as they arrived and sighed in relief.

"There you two are! And first time seeing you in person, thank you for keeping Lucc safe." Ryan grinned down at Aura and looked ahead at all of the ground that they had to cover. "We should get going I guess." He added and strapped the pouch with the extra magazines around his hip.

"Yep, don't wanna get left too far behind." Paige leaned her rifle on her right shoulder.

"Onward, I guess." Ryan said, and with that. The six of them began their journey to the oasis. The place that would change their lives forever.


	31. Dangerous Land

(Alliance- Apocalypse Tomorrow... is a song that fits well while reading this chapter)

"Do we even have a plan? Y'know, to somehow get out of this if we get the chance." Paige questioned while they dragged across the sand.

"Even if we did get an opportunity to ditch we'd have a long way back." Luis shrugged his shoulders.

"So you're saying it makes no sense to even try and possibly get out of a suicide mission like this?" Ryan kind of lashed out at what he saw as a negative approach, even though Luis was right about that.

"I think we should do the minimal amount to help this cause and only worry about our safety until it's over. Trying to run away from it will just have both Timə and the the people we're currently working with against us." Luis made even more sense with that; it caused the group to go silent for a moment as everyone thought on it.

"Yeah, I guess we'll see once we're there." Ryan decided to close off the subject with that.

Meanwhile, Aura had been planning the route through the oasis with Lucc and Silva since it was constantly changing and being improved. "As long as everyone follows me, we'll all survive. They made the route more complicated now, but I know my ways. Even watched them set some of it up." Aura explained, there were more deadly traps set in various places around the forest that had to be avoided.

"What about the other groups?" Lucc wondered how everyone else would make it through the forest. No way they'd trust a Vaporeon to guide them through.

"We can't worry about them, let a few of them go first. Once they're dead, the others will be afraid...but we'll walk through with no problem. Bet they'll follow us pokémon after that." Aura smirked a bit and glanced over at Lucc.

"Oh! This is my good friend Silva, you two haven't properly met yet." He introduced them to each other and walked behind them slightly enough so that they could see each other.

"I'm Aura, glad you're here to fight with us Silva." Aura spoke warmly, she was generally friendly. Just daring at times.

"I am too, it's my first time being in another era." Silva was very well nervous but didn't show it at all.

"Well, I hope this upcoming experience will please you." Aura was being a bit sarcastic of course, the oasis was always an intense run and you could lose your life at any given moment.

They arrived at the edge of the vast forest in another half hour along with many other groups that didn't dare enter without orders.

Ryan spotted Yan at the front of the groups and he quickly gathered everyone's attention. "They'll know we're here as soon as we step foot in that forest. We have to move quickly and infiltrate the main building before they have too much time to prepare for proper defense and retaliation! Let's go!" Yan told all of his groups that were idly standing by and two groups of four each cautiously entered the oasis first. It worked, but only for so long. Little did they know, caution alone wouldn't save them from fatal death traps, but they soon found out when the entire first group fell through a trap door and into a dark abyss. The second group seemed to be frozen in terror as Yan could only watch.

This was Aura's queue, and like it was nothing, she strolled into the forest with Lucc and Silva trailing behind.

"Lucc no-" Ryan's voice quickly faded as he began to remember that that Vaporeon knew the forest. He sighed nervously and began following after her and the others.

"Eh, not like I have anything to lose anyway." Paige mumbled and caught up to Ryan in order to stay on path. Luis looked around at the other groups that seemed to watch out of curiosity and obvious shock even under their masks before he headed after Paige.

"Idiots, following the lead of pokémon!" Yan grunted, but couldn't look away, he watched them even pass by the terrified group that were untouched and became silent. "Follow their lead!" He had to gave in and ordered the groups to follow after what Aura had started since it was obviously working.

"You have them all following your lead Aura. You're really something else…" Lucc complimented while trailing behind and mimicking her route as she walked.

"I know, now stay focused and alert. We'll be out of the trap zone soon." Aura went around a few trees and sped up to a slow trot. Everyone had to trust the person in front of them since they were all copying what Aura did and all had to accurately follow her exact steps. A few could be heard failing and getting finished off by some trap with agonizing screams to accompany them.

Aura got out of the trap zone first of course and saw the open, mossy field ahead of her that she saw the last time she was here. Eventually, everyone that survived gathered around the beginning of the field and it was unusually silent.

"Something isn't right, they know we're here…" Yan couldn't understand why there was no shooting, no gunfire, nothing at all. It was eerie in a way.

"I feel so vulnerable out here." Ryan looked around his dark surroundings constantly while he stood near Paige and the others.

"I'm sure we all do, they have the drop on us. A heavy advantage, and they're doing something with it." Paige kneeled down to rest for a moment since everyone was stopped.

With everyone at a temporary standstill, Lucc realized that he'd totally forgotten about his nanolens. If it worked, he could likely help out. Once he turned it on, Lucc activated penetrate surfaces. 'Ha! It works.' His ears perked in excitement as he looked around the forest for any apparent heat signatures. Nothing, but out of the bottom of his eye, he saw a lot of them under him. Lucc looked down at the ground to a sight that completely horrified him, it made his heart sink and his ears flatten as fast as they'd perked.


	32. Betrayal

(Zack Hemsey - The Way... is a song that fits well while reading this chapter.)

"We're standing on top of a trap...a big one." Lucc took a few steps back, though that wouldn't make any difference.

"Lucc...what?" Aura looked a the ground beneath her, confused at what he was getting at.

"They're underneath us." He glanced down once more at the heat signatures that he saw underground before looking back up at Aura with a look of helplessness that would only last for a split second before the ground suddenly opened underneath everyone.

Every group, not one person left above ground, fell straight down and hit the hard dirt under them which was a rather short fall from the surface. Everyone was either heavily disoriented or injured from the unexpected fall. All that could be heard were Timə agents yelling at everyone to stay on the ground, even the occasional gunshot was heard from the few that didn't comply. All weapons were confiscated, bright flashlights were shining in everyone's faces.

But out of all of the chaos going on at the time, Ryan honed his hearing in on one particular voice that he heard. The voice of a single man who sounded very familiar, he sat up in his dizzied state to see if he could find the man he heard, but was jabbed in the back with the barrel of a gun which pushed him back down. After a while, the agents got everyone to calm down and be compliant.

This was when Ryan heard the voice again. "I have to hand it to you guys, you tried. You had courage, got through my traps. I am impressed...but you're nothing now, your fate unknown. Your lives are now in my hands." The man spoke ominously. "Take them to the cells for now. Store the pokémon in the drainer cells, can't have them escaping by using attacks." He ordered before walking away. Everyone was now handcuffed and taken through the dark underground tunnel in groups of three until they would make it through the first door. They kept the groups very close together and began leading them to the destination, two agents in front and two behind each group.

They entered a huge room with hundreds of time pods neatly lining the walls, they must have been planning something big.

"What is all of this?" Ryan gazed around the room in awe.

"Who knows..." Paige sighed and looked back at all of the other groups. The pokémon must have been taken through a completely different route, they were nowhere in sight. After making it to the end of that room, they entered a small dimly lit room with two doors side by side in front of them and one to the left and right.

They were taken through the door on the left and were now in a long and cold corridor. Tons of medium sized cells on each side of it. The agents began storing the groups of three into each cell. Luckily, Ryan, Paige and Luis all stuck together so they were thrown into the same cell on the left. At least the agents had uncuffed everyone before throwing them into their cells. There was one bunk bed that was in fairly poor shape on the right side of the room and a mattress on the floor that was across from the bunk beds by the wall. It would all have to do for the time being.

"Wonder what they have planned for us." Ryan looked through the bars of the cell and saw some others locked up.

"Does it matter anymore? I'd be okay whether or not I died, this isn't the life I want either." Paige went and sat down on the mattress of the lower bunk.

"Hey...if we can get out of this...somehow, we could possibly make it back home." Ryan tried to keep Paige's hopes up.

"You can't guarantee it, it's a lost cause at this point." She'd definitely lost all hope and Ryan couldn't blame her for it. He had before.

"She's right, you're all gonna get killed anyway…" Luis spoke from the wall at the back of the room that he was leaning against.

"How do you know? You sound sure of yourself." Paige thought he was taking a guess, but found it odd that he used you're, as if excluding himself.

"I...I should have told you guys sooner, this is all my fault." Luis turned his face away in obvious guilt.

"What? What are you talking about Luis?" This only confused her more as she fished for a complete answer.

"I knew it was going to happen, all of this. I'm sorry..." He did answer, but this still didn't help Paige understand.

"Luis, what are you on about?" This only made her become a bit impatient, you could hear it in her tone.

"Paige, I've been your partner for a while now…and I know you trusted me, but you shouldn't have. I was working closer to Jared than anyone else was. I had mental skill that was crucial to his plan and he chose me because of it. Now he has everyone that tried to screw with his plans all in one place. He planned all of this." Luis felt a bit conflicted since Ryan and especially Paige had trusted him and was at his side for so long, but his loyalty to Jared was stronger. Plus, it's what kept him alive.

"Luis...I shot Jared. I shot him in the neck, he can't be alive." Ryan shook his head in confusion and turned to face Luis who stood up from leaning on the wall.

"You shot a clone. You killed a clone of his, do you think he'd be that stupid?" Ryan didn't know what to do with that response, he couldn't process it that well either.

"You knew we were going to be killed? That I would get killed? I always thought we were friends Luis...close friends." Paige stood up now, her eyes already beginning to water.

"We are Paige, there's jus-"

"No we aren't! You don't care about me Luis. You even said you're all going to die, you'll walk away. You'll be alive...but no one else will." She snapped at him and couldn't control her emotions, tears streaming down her face now while she quickly wiped them away with her sleeve.

"It isn't like that…" Luis knew there was no saving himself now.

"Oh? It isn't? Than why didn't you tell us any of this sooner?" Paige gave him a hateful glare, but it was also filled with just as much pain.

"Because...I-"

"Because you couldn't betray that psychopath!" She nearly yelled this at him, her cheeks stained a bright red from the amount of tears that continously streamed from her eyes. "You fucking knew Luis!" She took a few steps to him and shoved Luis back against the wall, hard - and he didn't dare hit her back, he couldn't.

"Hey, hey! Calm down guys." Everyone looked outside of the cell to see Jared standing in front of it with two agents by his side. "Come on Luis, we have some more work to do. Sorry for leaving you down here for as long as I did." He smugly grinned and ordered for one of the agents to unlock and open the cell. Luis walked out afterward and it was closed and locked again. "See you two later." Jared waved smirked at Ryan before they walked away.

Ryan sighed and decided to try and clear his mind. He looked back and saw Paige curled up on her side and laying on the mattress that was on the floor. She was in bad emotional shape. Ryan sat down on the bottom bunk and watched her body occasionally flinch from her recent crying. He couldn't watch her like that. Ryan built up some courage, he silently got up from where he was sitting and leaned down by her before laying on the side of the mattress that was by the wall since she was facing the other beds. Ryan wrapped his left arm around the side of her body and hugged her. He even slightly spooned her just to give her more comfort.

Paige didn't respond to it at first, she would lie still for a few moments before quickly turning over onto her left side, so that she was now facing Ryan and buried her face into his neck. She snuggled up to him and closed her eyes. Paige felt a bit calmer now, her breathing steady again for the most part other than a few sniffles that came from her and some more tears, which Ryan would respond to by rubbing her back and pulling her closer to him. His neck was wet with her tears but he didn't care, he cared about this girl. They'd get out of there, Ryan didn't come all this way to die and he'd bring Paige with him.


	33. Escape and Reassurance

"Aura...Aura! Wake up." Lucc nudged her cheek with his nose and sat by her while she was sprawled out on her right side. The small room that they were in had drained nearly all of their energy, and it caused both Aura and Silva to pass out. Neither of them woke up, even with Lucc constantly attempting to wake them, but they were fortunately still alive. Lucc looked around for any way out; all he saw was the sleek metal walls that boxed them in. A low buzzing noise emanating from every side which he assumed to be some kind of generator system that used energy waves. It must temporarily drain their energy and make them feel weak. "I may not be able to use my attacks, but I still have my nanolens to rely on." Lucc blinked to activate them and was relieved that they worked flawlessly so far. He activated penetrate surfaces and sure enough, it worked. 'I love this lens so much.' Lucc noticed a strong heat signature in the shape of a rectangle coming from just outside of the rear right corner of the box. 'That must be what's causing these drainer waves, but there's no way I'm getting to it easily…' He thought to himself and looked over at his friends who were still passed out from how weak this room had made them. There had to be some way to stop it.

It had been a few hours now and Ryan hadn't slept at all, he was thinking about how he could escape this place with Paige and the pokémon, and if he couldn't what kind of death he would have to suffer.

At least Paige was getting rest, she was still snuggled closely to his chest. Ryan could even feel her warm and slow breath on his neck, which he found soothing if anything. In fact, Ryan found her adorable while she slept and wanted to hold her more, so he slowly slid his right arm under her waist that was laying on the mattress. His left hand was still hugging her back. Ryan lightly hugged Paige with both arms now and grinned to himself. In a time of tragedy, everything felt okay right now, he felt great comfort while holding onto her. Paige obviously did as well since she'd fallen asleep in his arms earlier.

Though he was shaken from his thoughts quickly due to Paige shifting around in her sleep, which meant that she was waking up. He heard her lightly groan as she slowly sat herself up onto her knees, Ryan let go of her completely and sat up as well while hoping nothing would be awkward between them.

"Did you sleep at all?" Paige yawned and rubbed her eyes.

"Couldn't, but I'm glad you got some." Ryan grinned and eyed her sleepy face.

"Well, it came easier since you were holding me. Thank you for that." She returned a shy grin and looked at him as well.

"No need to Paige, are you feeling any better?"

"Not really, I'm scared again...for what'll come next mostly." She looked down for a moment and took a deep breath in and out to try and calm herself.

"Escaping shouldn't be scary to you Paige." Ryan scooted forward a bit as he tried to assure her.

"You don't know if we'll make it out of this alive Ryan. Everything's stacked against us...as usual."

"We're getting out of this, and I'm taking you with me." He took her delicate hands into his and gripped them tightly.

Paige looked down at his actions briefly before she would grin again.

'Okay Lucc...you've got this. They don't know you have the lens.' He exhaled deeply as the sealed door to the room slowly opened. He'd caused a repeated ruckus by throwing the side of his body against the walls which drained more of his energy, but it was something he had to do. Two armored agents armed with rifles walked in to check out what was going on, and they obviously weren't too happy about it. 'combat aid.' A blinking box was fixed onto both of the agents legs that were closest to one another. 'That's a double sweep...but I guess it's the most efficient way since they're armored. Ugh…'

One of the agents pulled a taser from his waist belt, but before either of them could take a step forward, Lucc ran at them quickly and slid easily across the metallic floor. He knocked the first one off of his feet with his body, but had to headbutt the other in the leg with enough force to push him down as well. Once he did that, a red colored box began to flash on their hands that held weapons, it had a fang logo. 'Have to disarm them...or else I'm dead.' He weakly scrambled up and ran at the agent on the left that he headbutted just as he began to get up. Lucc sunk his sharp teeth into his right wrist which caused him to yell out in pain and drop his rifle as expected. He looked over at the other agent and did the same to him, then nudging the weapons away from them. Combat aid then gave him one final instruction. There was a small opening under their sleek white helmets that Lucc was ordered to bite through, he only had one shot at this. Without overthinking, he ran forward and tilted his head to the left so that his maw could fit into the small opening, his teeth sinking into the left agent's throat as the agent weakly gripped onto Lucc's shoulder fur in response while quietly choking. Lucc was able to do the same painful process to the next agent, panting afterward and sitting a few feet away as he watched their own blood pool around them. He even heard some faint gurgling coming from them which he shied away from and closed his eyes.

Wasn't his fault that they were on the wrong team though. Lucc knew he had to move while he had the chance, so he walked out of the room and almost immediately felt his energy begin to come back to him. Outside was another blank white room with a breakable door. He remembered the console that was causing the waves that had drained him in the first place, so he went around to the side of the box that it was on. Easily enough, there was a red switch on the side of it which he pushed down with his right paw and caused the waves to stop being generated altogether. 'That should do it.'

As time passed, Ryan and Paige had been conversing, getting to know each other more and trying to take their minds off of the current situation. "You asked me how I started working for timə before. How did you end up in that line of work?" He asked while sitting in front of her on the mattress.

"Well, I was kind of pushed into it instead of it being a real passion. My parents had trouble making any good money once the economy back home started failing. We came across this new time travel company in an ad and they insisted that I look into it. So, I did and we talked about it, it was in the same region that I was already living in too, so it wasn't even that hard to get to. Next thing you know...well I'm here. Not as interesting as how you got into timə though." Paige sighed after telling him her lengthy story.

"I wish mine went that smoothly, but I can't keep wishing for a different life. Neither can you Paige, we just have to live the one we're living now...but you can always change things within it." He wasn't trying to give her some kind of speech per say, just some encouragement.

"You're right, I'm just so afraid of possibly dying here." She couldn't get that out of her head, or the fact that Luis betrayed her recently.

"Paige, we aren't going to die here remember? We'll get out of here. Head back home...or stay in some other era for a while if you want."

"Okay Ryan...I should probably think of that possibility too." She was finding it hard to think positively, especially at a time like this, but Paige would try.

"Of course, you need to be motivated to get out of here." Ryan nodded and heard a voice come from the outside of their cell.


	34. So Far So Good

"Ryan…I think it's time." Paige sat up some more from her position so that she was crouched. Her and Ryan watched timə agents begin leading Yan's groups out of the cells. "What do we do?" Her heart already began to race, she felt her entire body heat up.

"It'll be okay Paige, we'll have to see where they take us…" Ryan stood up with her and sighed, the agents would eventually get to their cell and they were barely prepared for any kind of escape plan.

"Glad there were no permanent effects on either of you." Lucc leaned and down and nudged both Aura's and Silva's cheek as they slowly woke up. "Once you two are up, we have to go get Ryan and Paige." The agents continued taking everyone out of their cells and recuffing their wrists. They were taking each group down the hall, and it didn't take them long before they reached the cell that Ryan and Paige were in. They were both cuffed again as well and were walked down the dim hallway by two agents. Paige didn't say a word to Ryan, she only shot him a quick look. One of unexpectancy and pure fear as they were taken behind the other groups. At the end of the hallway was an open doorway that led to a flight of white metal stairs. Everyone was taken straight up and were now in a huge open room, no cornered walls, they were rounded. Jared and Luis stood in the middle of the tinted white colored floor. At least 20 of his agents armed and standing around in the middle of the massive room. Ryan made sure to scope everything and everyone out just in case he had to do something. Him and Paige lined the walls along with the other groups around the room.

"Glad everyone could make it today. Now I want to talk about something before we get started here. To everyone, each and every single one of you that tried to ruin and destroy my plans. Thank you. You've only made me stronger, more capable and smarter. Once I get the rest of my bases setup, all will be ready. I will finally be at peace...anyway! Bring Yan forward please." Jared smirked and watched as his agents brought the leader of the Scorpios over and sat him on his knees in front of Jared with Yan's back to him. "Yan...you were a great partner, at one point you were working with me. Now...now you turned on me after you thought I was dead." Deep seated anger was heard in his voice, he pulled his pistol out of his holster and clicked the safety lock. "That's okay Yan. I'll make sure this doesn't happen again...unlike me, you have no clones to save you." Jared pressed the barrel of the pistol to the back of Yan's head and fired it quickly. Yan slumped to the ground immediately.

Paige turned away to avoid seeing it, Yan wasn't that bad of a guy to her.

"Bring me the girl." Jared had to be talking about Paige.

"Paige, remember that you have the bracelets." Ryan whispered in her ear before the agents pulled her over to Jared and felt himself almost unable to control a steady breathing pattern - as if having a small panic attack while watching the only person he had left being pulled over to a madman.

"Ah, Paige. I've nothing against you personally, other than the fact that you work with Ryan. Thing is, Luis needs to overcome a few feelings as I have. To prioritize, to realize what is truly important. Friendship is nothing in comparison to what we are doing here." Jared handed Luis the pistol by the barrel of it. "I want you to do it Luis, show me that you realize the importance of my plan."

Luis slowly took it out of Jared's hand and held it in his right hand. Luis couldn't possibly do this to Paige, but he knew he couldn't show any hesitation in pulling the trigger. He pressed the barrel to the back of Paige's head and turned his head away just slightly, which gave Ryan the queue.

"Now Paige!" Ryan yelled quickly; not a second later and as expected, he heard the gunshot and saw Paige fall forward - though she suddenly broke her fall with her hands.

"What?" Jared took a few steps back in disbelief as she stood up, her eyes glowing.

Lucc appeared at the top of the stairs with Aura and Silva behind him a few moments later. "We can be killed easily, we can't just rush in there…" As he said this, a lot more gunfire was now heard as Jared's agents now all shot at Paige who was currently invincible to bullets. The ability would fade soon though, so she had to get out of there. "They're occupied, stay here you two!" Lucc sought out and found Ryan easily since he was already near the stairs. He stayed low and trotted up behind his trainer, then used bite on the chain link that held the handcuffs together.

"What the?...Lucc?" Ryan stretched his arms out a bit and leaned down. "Wait downstairs until I get Paige." He tapped his bracelets together which granted him shield and ran into the continuous spray of gunfire. He picked Paige up off of the floor swiftly and ran back down the stairs that they came up from while nearly slipping a few times. His right arm under her calves and his left under her upper back to support her as he carried her. "Run!" Ryan told Lucc, Silva and Aura as he ran down the dark corridor. They had to find somewhere to hide fast, maybe in the timepod room they walked through before. Bullets whizzed past them as they were chased down the hall. Ryan was only worried about the pokémon by his side since they were completely vulnerable to injury, but luckily, they made it through the doors that lead to the pod room. "We need to hide in one, quickly!" Ryan looked around for a moment and ran in between two of the five rows of the pods by the walls. There were about ten in each row, and he used his keycard to get into the fifth pod in the second row. "Hurry!" Ryan stepped inside and quickly closed the door behind Lucc and the others. He rested Paige over his lap as he sat down and tried to catch his breath. "Lucc, free Paige will you?" He showed him the small chain and Lucc nodded a bit before accurately biting it in half. "Thanks bud." Ryan gently rested her on the floor of the pod, she must have passed out from the onslaught of bullets fired at her. Normally it would have kill her, so she was probably terrified. "Ugh, these pods aren't active…" He sighed as he attempted to use its travel features, which didn't work. "We're stuck here…"


	35. Gateway

(Atli Örvarsson- Cell Signal... is a song that fits well while reading this chapter.)

About 10 minutes had passed and everything outside of the pod was silent, as if the agents had stopped searching for the group altogether. Ryan knew it couldn't be that easy to escape them though, he was sitting up against the wall of the pod. Paige still unconscious, but fortunately breathing. Ryan would keep her safe. He had no idea what to do from here on out, but he would at least keep her safe.

"They'll surely come back, and when they do...I'm ready." Lucc was sitting up in the midst of Aura and Silva.

"How?" Aura turned to look at Lucc while at his right side. They were nearest to the door of the pod.

"I don't think I told you, but I have a nanolens in my right eye. It can do some neat things, including the ability to flash anyone. Temporarily blinds and disorientates, it'll work." He replied, seeming confident with his idea.

All attention was directed toward Paige a few moments later though as she sat up from on her side and gasped for air.

"Paige? Paige!" Ryan sat up on his knees and instinctively hugged her waist with his arms, then pulling her towards him so that she was sitting in his lap and leaning against his chest. "It's alright, they didn't hurt you...you're alive." He spoke calmly and felt her shake in his hold.

"I-I thought I died…" And once again, a few tears began streaming down her face.

"I know, I can see why you would think so, but you aren't and we're only one step closer to escaping." Ryan gently brushed her hair out of her face with his right hand.

Paige was a lot calmer now, she looked around at her surroundings sat up a bit more. She didn't realize or care at this point that she was in Ryan's lap. "Are we in that pod room? Are they looking for us?" She had questions, plenty of them.

"I don't know Paige, it all went silent. We shouldn't move but...we should." He looked ahead at the door of the pod in thought.

"I think we should go while it's silent. We have the bracelets. That gives us...ten minutes until they need to recharge, just in case we're spotted." She looked down at her wrists and was glad that the bracelets had worked in her favor so far.

"Yeah, but we'll be vulnerable for five minutes while they recharge. You do have a point though, we can't just sit in here until they find us…"

And as they spoke, Jared was furious. Sitting in a hidden room in his cushioned chair. "Luis, what are you hiding from me?" He sighed and rested his chin on his folded hands as Luis stood in front of him.

"Nothing...why would I hide a thing from you?" Luis tried to act as casually as possible so that he didn't appear to lie. He really wasn't, Luis had completely forgotten about the shield bracelets.

"That was a point blank shot to the head. You don't survive that, what do you have planned Luis? Are you too trying to see me fail? Do you choose friendship over something so vital?!" He glared at Luis, his face almost red in anger as his voice almost boomed.

"N-No! Of course not...I forgot that she had those on! I swear!" Luis pleaded to his boss and hoped he would believe him. "We can't afford mistakes. Who knows if you're telling the truth or not...you're going to explain everything to me, and if I find out that you're working against me Luis. I won't hesitate to kill you."

"I'll go first, then you follow behind with the rest." Ryan said quietly as he stood in front of the pods' door and slowly opened it. He wished he had some kind of weapon for defense, but him and Paige were both unarmed. Ryan slowly stepped out onto the floor, the room was still dead silent which was a good thing right about now. "Just tell me if you see anything, we need to be ready." He said this quietly while walking through the narrow rows and looking around constantly. All clear, they just had a lot of backtracking to do without getting caught.

"Stay in front of me Silva...you too Aura, if anything happens, I need full access to the attackers behind us." Lucc told them and made sure they were in front of him as they walked behind Ryan and Paige. They made it to the end of the room, and Ryan opened the door to what confused him a great a deal. There was snow in front of him for miles, tall mountains in the far distance.

"I don't understand...none of this was here before." He said, afraid to take another step into whatever it was. Could be an illusion of some sort for all he knew.

"We can't stand here forever Ryan." Paige looked behind them at the fortunately still empty room.

"Ugh…" He slowly took a step forward, a satisfyingly soft crunch was heard under his shoe. "I-I think it's real." Ryan took a few more steps out into the cold environment and looked back at Paige. She hesitantly followed him along with Lucc and the others, what was once the timepod room closed up and disappeared into thin air behind them.

"It's cold, but better than what was back there...I hope so anyway. I wonder what this place is…" Paige looked around at the miles of pretty much flat snowy ground and trees all around them.

"We should keep moving, maybe try to find someone that can tell us where we are." Ryan began walking through the few inches of snow with the group.

"I haven't seen snow in such a long time." Lucc followed behind and looked around at the snow in awe.

"This might be another era, but I can't be too sure of anything at this point." Aura thought, no one was sure of the technological advancements the base could have reached after all.

"Well this adventure got ten times cooler for me. Literally…" Silva hadn't explored much, so this was all great to her - negating her recent experience at the forest base of course.

"Huh…" Lucc spotted something off to the left on top of a steep-ish and snow covered hill in the distance. 'Zoom lens.' He stopped walking and focused his view on what was a small house with active smoke coming from out of the chimney. Lucc deactivated it and looked ahead again. "Hey, look guys! To the left!" His ears perked, he was proud of himself for spotting it.

"What? I don't see anything." Aura and Silva both looked in the general direction that Lucc had been referring to.

"Oh...right, no lens. Well, I see a house that may be occupied!"

"Really?...I think I see something too!" Silva ran through the snow and alerted both Ryan and Paige by nudging their legs with her cheek.

"What is it Silva?" Ryan turned around and looked down at her. She pointed her left ribbon towards the direction of the house and it took Ryan a while before seeing the object himself. "Oh! Good eye, there's something in the distance over that way. Could be a house." He felt a bit of relief since he was lost beforehand.

"Alright, let's go then. I'm starting to freeze already since we aren't dressed for this weather!" Paige replied and folded her arms while beginning to lightly shiver each time the wind blew past her.

They began to head towards what hopefully was something that could cure their confusion, and maybe even aid them in their escape.


	36. Shelter

As they neared the house, the air only got colder. It looked like a snowstorm was starting to pick up, and that was bad news if so. "U-Ugh, I'll be surprised if I'm not dead by the time I reach that house." Paige picked up her pace as they walked through the snow.

"I'd say we're about five minutes away, we'll be fine. Just looks like the snow is becoming more aggressive." Ryan hugged himself for a moment as the wind blew past with more force. He looked behind him to make sure Lucc and both Aura and Silva were following behind, and fortunately they were.

By the time they reached the front door of the house, it was hard to see even a few feet in front of them since a snowstorm definitely had picked up. Ryan went ahead and weakly knocked on the door while Paige and the others lagged behind. It took awhile but the door slowly creaked open just a bit.

"Who...who is it?" The sound of an older man came from the other side of the door, though his face wasn't yet visible. "Y-Ye one of those freaky guys?" He added, seemingly nervous about something.

"No sir, we're just looking for somewhere warm to stay...just me and my friend, a few pokémon..." Ryan shook and hoped that whoever this person was would believe him. He may have had a run in with timə at some point from what he said. Silence ensued before the door would open some more, revealing the almost pale colored man with gray hair and a short beard along with it. He also held some kind of shotgun in his hands, which Ryan assumed was for any trouble that came his way. After the man studied Ryan, Paige and the three pokémon standing behind him, he grinned.

"Alright...come on." He lowered his weapon and opened the door fully while he stood beside it. He watched them all enter and closed the door behind them.

"Thank you so much, much warmer in here." Paige and the rest stood by the door.

"You can thank Flare for that." The man looked over at his Growlithe that sat by the warm fireplace. "Anyway, how'd you guys get here?" He questioned as he eyed both Paige and Ryan along with their odd outfits.

"Well-" Ryan began but was cut off by the man anyway.

"You know what? I don't wanna be rude. Let's get everyone settled down and warmed up first. You can call me Davin." He grinned and motioned over to his couch that was in front of the fireplace in the living room.

"Thank you again." Ryan said and sat down on the middle of the couch next to Paige while Lucc, Silva and Aura sat on the soft carpet in front of the brown couch.

"So...who are you guys?" Flare approached the three pokémon, mostly Lucc.

"My name is Lucc. The Vaporeon is named Aura, and the other is Silva. My friends." Lucc laid down by Aura. "You?" He then asked the Growlithe.

"I'm Flare, hope you enjoy your stay here." He wagged his tail a bit and gave off a light smirk.

"Here, must be thirsty." Davin brought two water bottles in from the kitchen and handed them to Ryan and Paige, even set a few bowls of water down for the pokémon and sat down in a chair to the left of the fireplace. "So, how did all of you end up here?" Davin asked.

"We came through some kind of door. It seemed like an illusion at first but...it was real. Like a gateway to another world." Ryan tried his best to explain since he was bit confused himself.

"Ah. I see some weird fellows use some portal like that often. Never bothered to follow after em though, so no clue what they're doing here. You with them or something?" Davin didn't know much about timə other than what he had just described.

"No...what year is this?" Paige changed the subject out of her own curiosity while taking a few much needed swigs of her water.

"It's 3070." He replied and stood up from his chair. "Well, I'm gonna head off to bed soon. Welcome to stay the night if you want, there are two rooms back there down the hallway and extra clothes in the drawers." Davin smiled and began to walk back over to the kitchen.

"We appreciate it, we'll be gone first thing in the morning, so don't worry!" After that was said, they walked back and saw the two wooden doors a distance away from each other, which had to be the rooms.

"One on the right is mine, but I like company anyway!" Flare nudged the door open and presented his "room," which consisted of a small mounted bed and a large poké bed that was on the floor next to the bed.

"It'll work perfectly, thanks Flare!" Aura grinned and quietly yawned while all three walked into his room. Meanwhile, the room that Paige and Ryan had entered had a bigger bed, it would need to be shared unless one of them would sleep on the floor.

"You can take the bed if you want Paige." Ryan offered, he wouldn't let her sleep on any floor if a choice was available.

"Nonsense, I don't mind sharing a bed with you Ryan. It's pretty big anyway." She grinned and playfully nudged him with her shoulder before walking over to the dresser at the left side of the room. "I need to change, hate these clothes." Paige pulled the top drawer open and shifted through various attire.

"I'll go wash a bit in that case." Ryan would give her privacy, he went into the bathroom, which was through the door right across from his.

In Flare's room, Flare took the bed. The Growlithe laid near the top of the bed while Silva laid by the bottom. Usually she would be by Lucc, but Aura was currently spending time with him and Silva understood this. They both laid in the large blue colored poké bed at a slight distance from each other, this went on for about five minutes until Lucc couldn't handle it anymore. Now was his chance, especially with Flare and Silva now seeming to be asleep.

"Aura?" He asked while looking over at her from the left side of the bed by the wall.

"Hm?" She turned her head to face him, those beautiful eyes of hers nearly stunned him to the point of turning back, but Lucc would let nothing stop him.

"S-So, with all of this...this stuff happening lately. With us never getting enough time to spend together - I never officially got to tell you how I felt about you." He had managed to make it this far, though that wasn't really the hard part.

"Mhm…" Aura casually listened with a small grin on her face and a sparkle in her eyes. She was obviously waiting for Lucc to get on with what he was trying to say.

"W-Well, I think you're the prettiest female I've ever seen...you can carry yourself well and I happen to like everything about you so far. Whenever I got the chance to be around you, it made my day. Whether it was narrowly avoiding death...or just sitting in your bunker. What I'm trying to say is…" His voice trailed off, and before he could bring it back-

"I love you too...Lucc." Aura completed his sentence and gave off a more pronounced grin while scooting closer to him. Lucc laid right next to her now, even curling his body around her smaller one so that they'd be somewhat spooning. Aura slowly threw her head back so that she was looking up at Lucc with a passionate glare in her eyes. Fortunately, he got the hint but now had to act upon it. His entire body felt hot as he moved his head down just enough to be inches away from Aura's mouth. She leaned up and completed the kiss, her lips connecting with his maw as they shared their first kiss, which would only bring them closer to each other.

While Ryan was washing his face and finishing up, Paige had found a few comfortable things to wear for the night. A pair of light blue shorts that cut off at the very end of her upper thighs, a white t-shirt that was only slightly oversized and matching socks because it was a bit cold in the room to her. She went and sat on the bed once she was done. Ryan came through a few moments later and was caught by surprise at the sight of her new clothes. The shorts did look good on Paige, but he wouldn't look down there and make it obvious. "I guess I'll change into something more comfortable too." He eventually spoke and walked over to the dresser as he looked through the few available drawers.


	37. Unseen Danger

"I've gotten word from my agents...they went through one of the transition doors." Jared slowly paced back and forth in his room.

"Who activated it?" Luis was leaned against the wall by the door of the gray and dimly lit room.

"I was going to send some of the employees here out to the base in that era, so I activated it a good while beforehand. Looks like Ryan and his idiotic group got to it first...not that it matters, they'll be found once the snowstorm blows over."

"Not as stylish but it works." Ryan had put on a pair of black pajama pants that were comfy enough and a white t-shirt with some matching socks as well.

Paige giggled a bit and rubbed her eyes with her left hand. "Mhm." She laid down on the left side of the bed that was against the wall and got under the thick black blanket to stay warm.

Ryan did the same, but laid more toward the right side and bundled up under the covers. "What are we going to do Paige?" He laid on his back and looked up at the ceiling.

"About what?" She turned over on her side and eyed him.

"We're not in the clear just yet, timə uses the same door that we did to get here. What if they have some kind of base here too?"

"I don't know Ryan, but I do know that Yan is dead. Luis is gone...it's just us two now. Like you said though, we'll get out of this. You've been right so far." Paige grinned warmly this time. "Oh, and thank you for comforting me, getting me out of there as well. I'd have lost all hope and died without you back there Ryan." She added, appreciative that he was there. Paige felt that she could actually trust him.

"Of course. There was no way I could watch you go through any pain alone...or leave you and let you die." As he spoke, their eyes locked for a solid few seconds before Paige would move from her area on the bed over to Ryan and hugged him tightly. Her face buried into his chest,

"thank you…" If she didn't mean that before, she definitely did now.

"Anytime Paige." He responded, wrapping his arms around what was just above her waist area. It wasn't hard to do at all considering how fit she was. A moment later and Paige had slightly pulled away from his hold only enough to be able to look at him. Her face not too far away from his as both of their eyes would again make contact.

Ryan took the opportunity to do what he couldn't possibly resist to do to the beautiful girl right in front him and leaned in enough to slowly connect his lips to hers. And of course, Paige wanted him just as much as he wanted her, so she closed her eyes and leaned forward into Ryan which deepened the kiss as she held him close. The kiss was held for nearly a minute before it was broken. A soft exhale escaping both of their mouths as they gazed into eachothers eyes. Either in shock, or newfound love, probably a bit both.

"R-Ryan I…" Paige stuttered, she had no idea if what had just happened between them was real, or if she should continue or not, but she couldn't push away the feeling of how much she loved it and wanted more even.

"I'm- I'm sorry Paige...was it wrong? I didn-" Ryan began, almost in a fit of panic, but was cut off by Paige pressing her soft lips onto his a second time. Since she'd taken more control this time, Paige shifted her body up onto him so that she was sitting on his lap as the blanket slid off of her back. Ryan was blushing at the sudden change in position, but it couldn't really be seen in near darkness. He looked up at her and could only slightly see her face through the small amount of light that had entered through the window.

Ryan gently placed his hands on her hips, it felt nice being able to touch her this way.

Paige wiped her mouth with her right arm and lightly placed her hand on Ryan's right cheek. After giving it a slight rub with her thumb and placing her left hand on his chest, Paige leaned down again and tilted her head to the left while giving his lips a few more passionate kisses. This time a quiet moan escaping her mouth, followed by a surprised gasp as she looked back to his lap that she'd been directly sitting on.

"I was expecting that." She quietly giggled and teasingly shifted her hips against his lap, which brought a sudden exhale out of Ryan in response. She got off of him after this and laid back by his side, snuggling up close to his body and laying her head on his arm in silence for a few minutes. "Where are we gonna go tomorrow?" Paige closed her eyes and yawned.

"I don't know, maybe we can get some more info out of Davin tomorrow. We do have to keep moving though."

"The snowstorm is beginning to clear up. Head out now to find them. Preferably before morning...and if you find them, kill on sight. No more risks." Jared put down the talkie he was speaking into.

Luis felt a sharp pain in his chest as he heard Jared order his agents to kill on sight. If there was one thing Luis couldn't live with, it was Paige dying. Luis already hated himself for pulling the trigger on her once, he betrayed her.

"Let's go Luis, we're heading out to the base. It's almost fully set up...after that we only have two more to finish. Then all will be complete."


	38. An Unwanted surprise

(Hazy- Manifest...fits well while reading this chapter)

Daylight came quickly, and Paige was woken up by it hit hitting her face through the window. The snowstorm must have faded away overnight, which meant there was possibly smooth traveling ahead of them. She covered her eyes with her arm and slowly got out of the bed without waking Ryan up.

There had to be more clothes in the dresser for her to put on, especially for the cold weather outside. While searching through the drawers, she found a red parka that was leather in material. She also found a slightly thin black jacket that she would put on under it along with two pairs of blue jeans that all looked like it would fit her average height. It brought her to wonder why Davin had such feminine clothes, maybe someone else usually stayed here. She flinched as she heard a voice suddenly come from behind her and turned around to see Ryan standing behind her. "You scared me! Morning..." She grinned shyly since she'd thought of the pretty passionate night they'd shared.

"That looks like it'll be a cute getup, I have to get something that'll keep me warm out there too." Ryan returned her grin and stretched out his arms a bit.

"Well, I'll change into this, you should go check on the pokémon." She laid her outfit out onto the bed as she said this.

"Alright, be back." Ryan wanted to give her privacy anyway, he closed the door behind him and walked over to the next room. As he slowly opened the door, he saw that both Aura and Lucc were awake; Ryan found it adorable how they were snuggled up together.

Lucc was laying overtop of Aura's backside a bit with his right paw draped over her side, as if protecting her from all harm. Lucc looked up at Ryan, along with Aura. He'd know they were a thing for sure now.

"You two are together huh? Cute couple, saw it coming." He smiled and was happy that Lucc had found happiness at a time like this as he did. "Well, we're getting ready to head out, so be ready alright?" Ryan walked away and noticed Silva beginning to wake up as he left. He took a few steps to the room that Paige was in and lightly knocked on the door.

"Come in!" He heard her voice from behind the door and opened it. "Does...it look good on me?" She had her parka unzipped, which revealed the black jacket underneath.

"It looks great, y-you look beautiful in it." Ryan choked that statement out, not because it was forced, but because that was the first time he'd complimented her like that.

Paige giggled to herself at how shy he seemed while complimenting her. "You're sweet Ryan, you can dress up for the weather now. I'll go see if Davin is up." She smiled and slipped past him through the doorway while softly gliding her left hand across his waist area.

Ryan grinned for a moment and went over to the dresser, luckily finding both a blue and a black jacket that was slightly thicker than what Paige had. He also found a pair of black jeans, Ryan could handle the weather out there more than Paige could apparently, so what he had would work for him. He began changing into his outfit quickly to catch up with her in the living room. He decided to keep the blue jacket underneath the black one.

"Well, I have both a son and a daughter, they moved out a while ago though. Just left some clothes behind, you can take anything you please. Even have something else for you in fact." Davin got up from the couch and sifted through a small dresser nearby the fireplace. He eventually pulled out a pair of black leather gloves, a red scarf and a pair of black boots and handed it over to Paige. "This'll help keep you warmer out there." Davin nodded and pulled up his baggy blue jeans around his white undershirt.

"Thank you, they're cute!" Paige put the gloves on and lightly wrapped the scarf around her neck once so that it draped down over her chest. She also put on her boots.

"Oh! Somethin for you too." Davin said as Ryan appeared from the hallway along with all of the pokémon. Davin came back from the dresser with a fuzzier pair of dull colored blue gloves and brown boots and gave those to Ryan. He got into the boots now and held onto the gloves for the time being. "Now you'll all have to be cautious out there, I'd spare a weapon for you if I could." Davin went to go sit back down, but heard a knock at the door. "Huh...never get company. You two wait here." He walked over and opened the door just a bit, his shotgun leaned against the wall by the left side of the doorway. "Uh...can I help you two?" He recognized them immediately, those people he always sees walking around. Timə agents.

"We're searching for two teenagers, one male and one female. Have you seen either of them recently?" One of them asked.

"No...no I haven't sirs!" Davin smiled and tried to sound believable - even though he was nervous in reality. He didn't know what was going on, but he wouldn't give Ryan and Paige away, these two agents didn't seem kind. They also didn't seem to be buying his claim either; saw right through him.

"You recently saw nothing out of the ordinary?" As Davin was being questioned, Ryan quietly pulled Paige and the pokémon back to their room.

"Paige, we can't stay here. We have to go, now!" Ryan almost whispered to her.

"We can't just leave Davin Ryan…" She looked out of the doorway and still heard the ongoing interrogation.

"Paige, if they catch us, they'll likely kill us. We have to go, we can get out through the window." He slipped on his gloves and walked over to the window while Paige quickly grabbed the CTX-252 from the pocket of her old outfit while Ryan was occupied.

Just as he began to lift the window up, the close echo of a gunshot boomed throughout the house and filled the sky. Everything froze for a few seconds, including Ryan and Paige as they gazed in horror down the empty hallway, no one knew what happened or who had gotten shot. Ryan kept his eyes on the doorway and took silent steps until he was pressed against the right side of the doorway. This way he wouldn't be seen, he motioned for Paige to stand on the other side of the door along with the pokémon.

Lucc turned on combat focus and stood by Ryan and Aura near the wall while Flare and Silva stood by Paige. He was prepared to fight and knew he could take down almost anyone. The floorboards creaked under footsteps that sounded like they were coming from the living room. That definitely wasn't Davin. 'Penetrate surfaces,' Lucc saw both agents immediately after activation and a heat signature draining from a body on the ground that was by the front door, which he assumed was Davin. Both agents were walking with rifles pointed in front of them as they cautiously made there way through the house, and they were getting closer to the room by the second. Lucc perked his ears as they were close enough so that he could hear their dialogue.

"Check the room on the left, I'll sweep the right." They were right in front of both rooms now, everyone's heart pounding.

A moment later, Ryan saw the barrel of the agents black rifle enter the doorway and had to act while they still had the element of surprise. He exhaled deeply before reaching out and grabbing it, he tried to pull it away from the agent but he must have had a tight grip as it wouldn't budge. "Ughn…" Ryan pulled again, hard enough so that the agent was forced forward into the room. At this point, the agent panicked and began spray firing the rifle, Ryan had to swiftly move to the side to avoid being hit.

While the agent was pretty much defenseless and continuously pulling at the rifle, Paige leaned down quickly and tripped him backward with her hands. Not a second later and the agent took a high pressured hydro pump from Aura to the face, this immediately threw his head back and snapped his neck.

"Paige, behind you!" Ryan saw the other agent appear in the doorway, obviously unsure of how to handle the situation. Faster than they could react, he took a grenade out from the pouch on his waist and pulled the pin. "Oh no…" Ryan scrambled up to his feet and ran, shoving the agent onto his back. This didn't help however, as the agent dropped the active grenade and it still began to roll into the room. "Run!" Ryan grabbed Paige's arm and tugged her along as they ran to the front door with Lucc and Aura following.

Silva and Flare had began to run down the hall as well but Silva felt something suddenly grab ahold of her left hind paw and fell forward onto her stomach. She looked back and saw the agent gripping onto her tightly; she couldn't move. Silva could only desperately paw at the floor in front of her and whimper helplessly. Flare did attempt to help by running back and biting at the agents arm so that he would let go.

"S-Silva!" Lucc had already made it outside with the others but began to run back inside of the house to get to her.

"No Lucc!" Ryan dived after him and was able to grab ahold of his body before Lucc could get back into the house. The last thing Lucc saw of his friend was the horrified expression on her face. It was followed by a sudden bright flash and a loud and airy explosion coming from the back room of the house. Afterward came dead silence, everyone stared at the black smoke that came from the back room.

"Silva…" Lucc deactivated his nanocam and felt his heart shatter. He wriggled his way out of Ryan's hold and darted back inside of the house, at least half of the room was blown to pieces and there were no sign of bodies anywhere. Silva was dead, Lucc's only friend. His best friend at that. 'I won't let this go silently Silva. None of us will, don't you worry…' Lucc took a deep breath and slowly made his way back outside.

"I'm sorry Lucc...I couldn't lose you." Ryan felt terrible for what he did in a way, but he didn't want to lose his pokémon.

Lucc understood this; he was glad Ryan stopped him from doing something so stupid in a realistic sense.

Aura didn't know what to say to him to give Lucc any comfort, but she stood by him and gave him a loving kiss on his cheek.

"They're going to be looking for us all over now." Paige looked around at the open field of snow surrounding them.

"I know, unless they think we died. Our best bet is to find out if they have a base here...Lucc, warn us if you see any other agents." Ryan said, he had no clue where to start walking, but he wouldn't give up. Not without shutting down Jared's operation for good.


	39. The Base In the Snow

Before they left the house, Ryan had grabbed Davin's black pump shotgun with about four shots left in it. That wouldn't help in any far ranged battle, but it was better than nothing. It was almost freezing out, but Paige and Ryan were dressed up well enough for the weather thanks to Davin. Lucc had fur and Aura could handle it just fine. They were pretty much walking aimlessly through the snow until any hint or lead they could use was found.

Lucc used his zoom lens every now and again to scope out anything that seemed out of the ordinary.

"You okay Paige? You did good back there." Ryan looked over at her while he walked by her side.

"I'm still alive, so I won't complain, and you did too. We make a pretty good team." She lightly grinned and glanced at the shotgun he had slung over his left shoulder. "Do you know how to use that thing?"

"More or less, not like I can afford to miss a shot anyway." Ryan tapped it on his shoulder a few times and playfully nudged her arm with his elbow.

"Right." Paige was silent for a few seconds before extending her arm out to Ryan and opening her gloved right hand while giving him a cute look. He found himself grinning even more and switched hands with the shotgun, then reaching out and holding her hand with his.

Lucc walked through the snow behind them with Aura, he hadn't spoken a word at all which was understandable, but she wanted to be there for him.

"Lucc...how are you feeling?" It was pretty obvious how he was feeling, but it was the only thing she could ask.

"Like a bad friend." Lucc had been holding back tears since he was trying to stay strong for Silva.

"You aren't one. I don't know the history between you two Lucc, but I know you." She couldn't do much, but Aura would try to get him to take the blame off of himself at least.

"Her trainer was killed because of Jared, I took her in to save her life after that...to protect her. I saved her from the captivity she was being held in recently - this is why I didn't want her to come along! Silva didn't deserve this...and I won't let them get away with it." He closed his eyes for a bit and swallowed.

"I'll be by your side the entire time Lucc." Aura glided her tail alongside his briefly, she noticed his ears perk momentarily as a result.

"Huh…" Lucc was about to reply to Aura, but something had caught his eye. He turned on zoom lens and scoped out three agents that were walking a few miles away from them. They hadn't seemed to spot Lucc and the others yet, which was a relief. Lucc ran up to Ryan and nudged his leg with his nose.

"What is it bud?" Ryan looked around and wasn't able to see what Lucc saw from this distance.

Lucc would have to lead, following those agents could lead them to their area of operations. He began to trot to the right through the snow and looked behind him at Ryan.

"If it doesn't put us in danger, go ahead and lead us. I trust you Lucc." He said and held the shotgun in both hands now as a precaution. As he lead the group, Lucc constantly used his zoom lens to make sure they were at a good distance. In about 10 minutes, they had to walk up a fairly steep snow mound; once at the top they saw the building below them about a few miles off.

"Good job Lucc, saved us a lot of walking." Ryan leaned down and gave him a soft pat on his head.

He leaned his head up into his trainers hand and used zoom lens once more to scope out the base. The building's white color did a good job of blending in with the snow, it was wider all around than it was tall. He spotted a few compact jeeps driving the grounds around it and a few agents walking about. With stealth and some strategy, it wouldn't be hard to infiltrate; once inside was a different story.

"I have a few investigating the house where the explosion took place. It was a heat vapor grenade, disintegrates all in radius. Two of my agents died, but I'm positive those kids and their pokémon did as well. We can continue with no more childish interruptions." Jared sighed in relief.

"Yeah…" Luis hid his guilt, sadness and regret that he felt so heavily in his heart.

Jared walked inside of his small office that was inside of the snow base and sat in his wooden chair at his desk. "I need for you to go contact the last two bases, ask them of their progress." He ordered and Luis nodded, he walked out of the office and began heading over to the control room.

Meanwhile, Ryan and his group were already halfway down the mountain. "We've gotta play this safe, one wrong move and we're screwed for good." Ryan stayed aware of everything that was around him.

"Having a quieter weapon would help, don't you think?" Paige grinned and eyed Ryan's shotgun.

"Hopefully we can get one, for now I'll only use this when I absolutely have to." He said as they finally made it the bottom, the base was only a few miles off now. "This is a stupid idea…" Ryan sighed and stared at the white building from a distance.

"Well, so was our last attempt. Not like we have much of a choice anyway." She turned to him and held right above his waist with both hands, leaning up a bit to give him another soft and reassuring kiss on his lips while grinning. "Plus...we'll be going in there together, neon shields and all. I think we'll do just fine."


	40. Setting up

The small group began making their way towards the base. As they walked, their surroundings became littered with trees as plenty surrounded the base. This would give them more of an advantage as long as they stayed hidden as much as possible.

Once they arrived at the edge of the snowy ground and trees, they saw the base's front doors across from them. The problem was that as soon as they were to step off of the more hidden area and onto the open grounds of the base - they would be fully exposed and vulnerable. It was too risky to make a blind run for the entrance.

"What should we do from here?" Ryan studied what he could see of the massive base, what made this harder was that it was currently daytime. Any agents roaming the base would easily see them if they weren't careful enough.

"We don't know anything about this base, the technology it uses, the patterns or shifts the agents take and work under. This'll be difficult." Paige kneeled down and tried thinking of a solution.

It may be hard for them, but not as much for Lucc. He'd been handling more situations recently, it was new to him since Ryan usually worked out almost everything for Lucc for the longest time, but Lucc liked the extra confidence this gave him. He activated penetrate surfaces and saw an overwhelming amount of heat signatures fade in both in and outside of the base. Though the more he focused on them individually, the more Lucc could pinpoint where each agent was. After a few minutes of analyzing movement patterns, he saw a perfect breakthrough. If they ran to the side of the building now, they wouldn't be in anyone's field of view. Lucc took a few steps forward and looked back at everyone expectantly as he then darted across the ground and to the right side of the building that was by the front door.

"Come on, his nanocam must be aiding him. Lucc will have to carry us through this." Ryan followed after his pokémon with Paige and Aura and stuck to the side of the building once he got there. Just after they had made it, an agent came from out of the front doors, but luckily walked the opposite way of where they were standing. "Good job Lucc, keep at it. We're about blind right now compared to you." Ryan looked around out of constant paranoia, but knew Lucc mostly had them covered.

"Maybe we should head for the back entrance." Paige suggested and pulled her scarf up so that it covered her mouth and kept her warmer.

"It'll be better to go wherever Lucc takes us, he sees things that we don't and knows the safest route." Ryan replied and followed Lucc while staying close to the wall.

"Should I be ready to fight?" Aura sped up so that she was trotting right behind him.

"Not yet, we'll be good while outside." Lucc said and suddenly came to an abrupt stop before a door that was on the wall that they were walking beside. "Wait...I-I thought he was taking another route." Lucc cursed himself for his bad judgement and saw the door swiftly open in front of him.

As quietly as possible, Ryan made his way over to the door and waited for the agent to step out before he quickly grabbed ahold of his throat with both hands and pushed him up against the wall to the left side of the door while silently choking him with all of his strength.

Ryan could see the agent reaching down for his pistol, but Paige pinned his wrists to the wall as well which left him unable to move. A few more grunts came from the agent before all movement from him ceased.

Ryan slowly let go and saw his body slump to the ground while he stared down at it. "W-We have to hide this. Lucc, can we go into the room?" Ryan asked and looked around at the fortunately empty lot.

Lucc saw no heat signatures currently in or nearby the room, so as far as he knew, it was safe. He nodded and cautiously walked into the dark room first before he would let his group do so.

"Alright, help me out with this Paige?" He asked and picked up the agent under his upper arms as he began to drag him into the room while Paige carried the underside of his legs and lifted them to the best of her ability. Together, they pulled the body into the room and softly closed the door behind them. "Is there a light in here?" Ryan looked around the pitch black room as he stood up and coughed.

"Uh…" Paige scanned the wall with her hands until she came across a light switch and flipped it up. Took a moment for the dusty lightbulb above them to flicker and turn on. Once it did, they realized that they were in some sort of unkempt closet with miscellaneous gear placed on two shelves on each side of the walls. "This gear hasn't been used in a while." Paige walked over and picked up an object that was small and spherical in shape, she blew some dust off of it and wiped the rest off while she inspected it. "It's a shard grenade…" She slowly stuffed it into her pocket while grinning a bit.

"What's that?" Ryan asked while leaning the agent's lifeless body against the wall and taking the pistol out of his holster to use himself.

"Basically, it's a grenade that once exploded, sends an unnecessary amount of shrapnel everywhere. It'll come in handy, we should look for some more things we can use on these shelves." Paige said while dusting off a few more items.

"Good idea, watch our backs will you Lucc?" Ryan sighed and went over to another shelf. He found a few heat vapor grenades and a suppressor that fit the barrel of his pistol nicely which would help stealthwise.

Paige happened to find a pistol that shot in bursts of four rounds at a time. This particular and fairly older model had a built in suppressor. She remembered it from when she was taught firearm knowledge while working for timə. Paige also found a few pre-loaded magazines for her pistol that were scattered across the top and lower shelves. The rest of the items on the shelf weren't too useful for their situation. "What exactly is our goal from here on out?" She stuffed the magazines into her right pocket and looked at Ryan.

"We find the control room and shut down this base for good, and since all of the bases are likely linked...maybe we can ruin the entire operation from here. Harder than it sounds of course..."

"This is going to be a long day…" She both mentally and physically readied herself for what was to come.


	41. Chapter 41

After some hesitation and silence, they were both ready to head into the base. "Lucc, give us an opening when you see one." Ryan kneeled down and waited as Lucc stared off into a few more rooms that led to a short flight of stairs.

"What do you see Lucc?" Aura stood by him and watched him focus.

"Just a few people, we'll catch a break soon enough." He turned away from what he was doing and looked at Aura for a brief moment. "Promise me one thing..." Lucc began and felt a returning and familiar pain inside of him. "Promise me you'll stay by my side during all of this Aura. I couldn't handle it if you were to die too...I want you with me forever." Lucc would protect Aura with everything in him.

"Of course, I promise." She grinned and sat by him as she nudged his cheek back to what he was supposed to be focusing on.

Lucc perked his ears, "Last one is heading up the stairs. This could be it." He put his right paw out on the ground in front of him and watched the agent walk down a hallway after making it up the stairs. "Okay, let's go." Lucc trotted over and pushed open the old door that lead to the next room.

"Doesn't feel too good when you can't see anything..." Ryan said while following after Lucc and entering the dark room.

Lucc knew he could help with that, he used his flash ability which lit up the entire room for a brief second. Enough to somewhat see what was around him, and this room was completely empty.

"Thanks bud. Try to do that enough so we can follow you properly." He said and wondered if Paige was having trouble as well. "Paige, it may be easier if you held onto me so we aren't split up." He reached out around him and tried to find her with his hand.

"Alright, good idea." She found Ryan quickly and held onto his wrist tightly with her left hand. He then began to walk forward with Aura behind them, following Lucc through the next room and up the stairs with the occasional flash coming from his lens. Once they reached the top of the stairs, there was one more door that would lead to the hallway.

"Is it safe Lucc?" Ryan asked, growing more nervous the deeper they ventured into this base. Lucc responded by pawing at the door a bit after he thoroughly scanned the hallway. "Alright. Here goes." He sighed and gripped the doorknob with his left hand, his pistol held firmly in his right as he slowly turned the knob and opened the door. It was empty, quiet. A hallway ahead that abruptly cornered into a sharp right turn, it was the only way they could go in fact.

Lucc hopped up the last step and began to trot down the hallway, no agents nearby until they would reach the next room. Ryan, Paige and Aura followed after while trying to stay as silent as possible.

"Wonder where they all are…" Paige also held her pistol in hand.

"Just be glad they aren't near us. Lucc is doing good so far." Ryan said lowly as they cautiously took the turn at the end of the hall.

Lucc stopped and looked at the three ways that were now offered to them. A door to the left, right, and one in front of them. The option in front of them was off limits for sure since there were a few agents seeming to be lifting things around inside of it. The door to the left and right were free to take, as Lucc began to walk towards it, he now saw why the building was so empty. Through layers of walls and in another nearby building, most of the employees were in some kind of huge room. Likely on break, they probably just left a few agents here to guard the base and work. The cameras around the building were active as well but apparently weren't being manned. Lucc looked over at the door on the left side and figured they could take that one first, he walked over to it and Ryan went up after Lucc to open it.

As soon as they all got through the door, one of the agents from inside of the other room exited and saw their door closing.

"Hey!" The agent knew that whoever had just gone through that door may not be an employee since the building was basically empty at the time. He quickly pushed open the door and was met with two pistols in his face. The agent quickly reached down for his own pistol but was drawn away from doing so once he heard the click coming from Ryan's pistol.

"Don't." He then took the agent's pistol and other weapons he had on him, then handed them over to Paige. He wasn't sure how to handle this situation, especially since there were probably more agents in that other room. He did know that the door had to be closed so that they wouldn't be seen. Ryan pulled the agent in enough so that the door closed behind him while pressing the barrel of his pistol to the agent's breakable white helmet. "Not a sound...or I'll shoot." He threatened and looked over at Paige. "Be ready. Just in case." She nodded in response and turned her focus toward the door with Lucc who was currently watching the other three agents that were inside of the room. After they set a few more items down, they all walked out of the door and stopped in front of it.

"Where'd Jack go? He said he'd wait out here for us." One of them asked, they had already caught onto something, but for now it was still safe. "Probably strayed off, come on. He'll turn up." Another agent responded, they all then went through the door on the right.

Lucc turned to look at Ryan and gave a nod to signal that it was now clear.

"Okay...now, Jack. We're looking for the control room here, where is it?" Ryan asked him,

"I-I can't release that information to you...it's classified." Jack replied, which was met with him being shoved back against the wall. It brought a light huff out of him. "If you want to live, you'll tell us. You'll tell us exactly where it is. Now I'll ask again...where is the control room?" Ryan pressed his pistol against Jack's white helmet with more pressure.

"O-Okay okay...you just go straight ahead, take a left and it's through the last door."

"Thank you Jack," Ryan began to lower his pistol.

"Ryan...we can't let him live. He'll tell others that we're here." She wasn't up for taking lives constantly, but their presence in this base had to be kept a secret...and Ryan knew she was right, he kept his eyes on her for a few moments before turning back to the agent.

"W-Wait, I promise I won't tell anyone you guys are here okay? Please don't kill me…" Jack began to plead, and as he did, Ryan could tell that he was young, which brought him some guilt.

"I believe you, I really do Jack...but." He started to raise his pistol back up, "we can't be too safe. I'm sorry."


	42. The Control Room

"We're nearly all set here, but Jared wants to know the progress down at your base." Luis stood a few feet away from a medium sized monitor built into the wall that was across the room from the door. It currently displayed who Jared had temporarily left in charge to care for the base in era 2099. There was also a computer and timepod in the right corner of the room.

"Need some more time, but we'll be all set up here as well soon enough. Just have to get the pods activated and move some more items in." The female agent replied and sighed out of near exhaustion from constantly working on readying up the base.

"Okay, I'll break him the news." Luis would next contact the last base, hesitation beginning to stir up inside of him about this entire operation.

"N-No I swear, just let me go!" Jack continued to plead with Ryan, which only made it harder, he shouldn't have let it go on for as long as it did. Ryan pulled Jack's head down and hit him in the back of the neck near his head with the butt of his pistol, which knocked him out cold. Ryan grabbed him before he hit the ground and sat him up against the wall.

"He's going to sell us out once he wakes up…" Paige looked down at the unconscious agent, but couldn't blame Ryan for sparing his life.

"Maybe, but we should be out of here before he does...we just have to move quickly. Now come on." He looked down the hall that they were told to walk down and let Lucc trot ahead of him.

Lucc noticed a few of the cameras on the ceiling subtly move which meant that they were being watched, but it couldn't be worried about now. He led them down the hall and took the left turn before stopping, there was someone inside of the control room up ahead. Lucc looked back at Ryan to try and tell him this.

"More agents? Not more than one this time I hope?" He asked Lucc and he nodded. This brought some relief out of Ryan. "That door probably won't be unlocked. We'll wait whoever it is out."

That didn't take long at all, once Luis was done with his task, he shut off the monitor and headed out. He opened up the door to a surprise, a big one. Probably the biggest one he'd ever seen in his life. Paige and Ryan were standing right in front of him, guns drawn and pointed at him, but that was the least of his worries.

Paige let out a quiet and hitched gasp upon the sight of Luis again, she genuinely hated him after how heavily he'd betrayed her.

"I...thought you two died…" Luis managed to say as he stared at them in disbelief.

Ryan wasn't too worried about Luis, he wanted to be securely inside of that control room. Ryan pushed him back inside and closed the door behind the others. And there it was, the computer that held tons of sensitive data and the master timepod right next to it.

"Paige…" Luis could see the pain and sadness in her eyes along with deep hatred. He wanted to make it right with his friend again, Luis wanted her to know that he still did care. "I'm...so sorry Paige, you know I had no choice. Wh-When I thought you died in that explosion, I was heartbroken." He took a few steps toward her to give her a hug but was met with her quickly aiming her pistol at his chest.

Her aim was shaky, frail. "No! No Luis, you can say whatever type of nonsense you want. Our friendship was over the moment you left Ryan and I in that cell. It died for good once you shot me…" Paige's breathing got heavier, tears streaming down her face. "I'm never going to forgive you Luis, forget it." She wanted to pull the trigger so badly, but couldn't bring herself to do so.

Ryan, Lucc and Aura all watched in silence. There was nothing anyone could do but let it play out.

"P-Paige look...I did it to survive! I'm doing it to survive, you can't take it personally." Luis took another step toward her and held back tears of his own.

"S-Stop!" She stepped back and wiped her eyes with her left hand. "I get it Luis, I really do. You did what was best for your life, but don't think for a second that I'll ever let you back into mine!" Paige glared at him, and it was now that Luis realized that he could no longer get through to her.

The door suddenly opened behind them, and Ryan quickly aimed his pistol at...Jared. Though the four agents he had with him had rifles pointed at Ryan and Paige.

"Drop those and raise your hands if you know what's good for you." Jared smirked and eyed both of them.

As instructed, and with no other choice, both Paige and Ryan dropped their pistols onto the floor beneath them and slowly raised their hands.

"Now, I've had just about enough of you two, what is it with you and thinking you could possibly get anywhere near what I've created? I was watching you the entire time. Laughable…" His smile quickly faded as he walked over to Ryan. "And I believe it's you who's been dragging Paige around. Using her as your 'sidekick' to foil my plans, she would certainly never do this on her own. Would you dear?" Jared made his way over to her and ran his right hand through a few strands of her hair.

Paige could have puked once he touched her, she did at least pull away a bit.

"Either way, I'm done with this." He walked back over to the entrance of the room and spoke into his talkie. A moment later, a few of his agents dragged a fellow agent into the room and dropped him onto his knees in the middle of it. "Oh...and I very much dislike traitors. You see...poor Jack here doesn't know that I listened in to his entire act through his helmet. Quite saddening really." He sighed while shaking his head and leaned down by the weak agent of his. "So Jack, why don't you tell me why you gave away the control room location to these outsiders, hm?" Jared was fairly calm, it was almost scary.

"I had...no choice, they threatened t-to kill me." Jack replied, obvious fear in his tone.

"You get no sympathy from me, you die with such vital information!" Jared's voice raised and he stood up, kicking Jack back onto the floor. "You're useless to me now. Can't be trusted." He pulled out a pistol and aimed it down at the terrified agent.

Jack reached up with both hands as an attempt to defend himself or brace. "S-S-Sorry! I wo-" His pleading was cut short, this time by a gunshot. His body laid still on the floor, a small hole in his chest. At least his death was quick, but it made Ryan that much more aware of how insane Jared was.

"Good riddance." Jared turned back to Ryan and cleared his throat. "Now, where were we?"


	43. Acting Quick

Ryan knew that if he just stood there and let Jared continue to control the situation, the outcome wouldn't be good.

However, Lucc was one step ahead of him. He thought to flash Jared and his agents, but he would have to at a precise angle so that they would all be affected; he would have to time it properly at that.

"Luis, now I remember last time that you failed to finish off your old partner. This time...you will, and if you can't, you are not worthy of working by my side. Just like Jack." Jared gave Luis his pistol and ordered for two of his agents to restrain Paige's wrists so that she couldn't activate her neon shield.

Ryan had to do something quickly, but he still had two rifles pointed at him. Any movement at all could result in him being immediately shot.

Though Lucc saw this as a perfect opportunity, the two agents that were holding Paige's wrists apart were facing him. Jared standing to the left of it and the two other agents that had Ryan under watch to the right and slightly behind Jared. The flash would likely be powerful enough to disorientate all five for at least ten seconds, but it wouldn't have an effect on Luis since his back was to Lucc, nor Ryan since he was right by Lucc's side. He would have to count on Ryan to take care of him.

Luis - heavily conflicted yet again, had raised the pistol and aimed it at Paige's head. It's not like she would ever be his friend again right? She would never forgive him, so what was the point of sparing her life and going against Jared? He was much more powerful after all.

As soon as Lucc heard the click come from the pistol, Paige turning her head and bracing for the shot. A blinding flash lit up nearly the entire room, everyone in its path, including Paige couldn't see a thing in front of them.

Ryan quickly ran after Luis and tackled him before he could realize what was going on, fortunately this caused him to drop the pistol.

"K-Kill them! Agh!" Jared stumbled over, unable to make out anything in the room.

Ryan was able to get on top of Luis and threw in a few heavy punches at his face while Lucc and Aura easily took care of the four disorientated agents.

Luis was able to eventually kick Ryan off of him and pulled out a switchblade as he stood back up.

Ryan would have to play it a lot safer now, each time Luis lunged at him with the knife he would effectively dodge it by darting out of the way. That was until Luis was had managed to tackle him down onto the floor and nearly stab him in the neck with it. Ryan grabbed ahold of his right wrist and prevented the knife from going any further, only a few inches away from his throat.

Lucc and Aura were so busy with the last two agents that they didn't notice it, Lucc had gotten one of them onto the ground and let Aura shoot a high pressured hydro pump at his face.

Paige slowly began to see what was in front of her fall into place, enough to see Luis on top of Ryan. "Ugh…" The flash had also given her a headache, but with all of the strength she had in her, Paige ran forward and shoved Luis off of Ryan. In her state of dazed recovery, she also fell over onto Luis and slowly sat up, able to restrain his hands at first, but he overpowered her by kneeing her in the stomach. This knocked the wind out of her and as a result, Luis broke free quickly and hilted the knife into the left side of her stomach.

The frantic cry out in pain coming from Paige as a result caught the attention of everyone in the room. She clutched the area she was stabbed in and fell over onto her back.

"Paige!" In this amount of time, Ryan was luckily able to get ahold of Paige's pistol, and without hesitation pointed it at Luis, quickly firing two burst rounds into his head. The agents were down and Jared must have escaped with all of the commotion going on. Ryan dropped her pistol and went over to her. "Paige…" He laid the upper half of her body on his lap and looked at the knife in shock.

"I-It hurts Ryan…" She winced and grabbed ahold of his jacket while looking up at him. "use th-the CTX...but you have to pull...the knife out." Her breathing pattern grew weaker and more uneven by the second; she even began to cough up some blood which meant that she was bleeding internally.

"Y-You want me to take it out?" He asked, flustered.

"Yes R-Ryan, hurry!" Paige begged, having a harder time breathing as time was quickly running out.

"O-Okay…" He took a deep breath and gripped the base of the switchblade with his right hand, and without warning, he quickly pulled it out of her stomach. She tensed up and let out another upsetting cry in pain which Ryan hated to hear coming from her. He followed that action up by quickly prepping the CTX that he got out of her pocket and looking down at her. "This'll hurt Paige…" Ryan leaned down and deeply kissed her lips, his left hand holding her back up while he injected the CTX directly into her stab wound.

She moaned into his mouth and clutched his jacket tightly with her hands to try and cope with the intense amount of pain. The cold liquid traversed through the wound, instantly freezing the surface, inside and even temporarily freezing the internal bleeding.

Ryan took it out of her and pulled her up to him so that she was comfortable. He even had some of her blood on his hands and mouth, but he didn't care. "You'll be okay Paige, we're almost done here..." He was relieved and grateful that she was still with him.

She weakly grinned and leaned her head against his stomach, "Thank you...again Ryan." The layer of ice wouldn't last forever though, she eventually would need real medical attention.

Lucc had turned on his surface penetration ability and saw at least 20 agents running to the control room from down the hall. He growled to alert Ryan, and Ryan caught on immediately.

He looked around the room desperately and found what they could use as cover. "Paige, we've gotta hide!" He groaned a bit as he picked her up and carried her behind the steel desk near the back of the room and set her down. He then ran back and grabbed all four automatic rifles that would be needed and took them back behind the desk as well.

"Aura, get ready to attack. And don't peek your head out too much." Lucc warned as he and Aura sat by Ryan. The door slowly began to open and Ryan came up with an idea.

He whispered, "Paige. I need that shard grenade." Ryan looked down at her and watched her hand it out to him from her pocket. He took it and held the gray grenade in his hand, waiting for the opening that he needed.


	44. Last Words

(The 126ers - Keys to the Kingdom, fits well while reading this chapter)

Ryan kept calm, his breathing steady. Once the door opened a bit more, he pressed the button on the grenade and heard it begin to slowly beep as it was activated. "Here we go…" It began to beep faster, faster - he threw it across the room and hid behind the closed off desk, the small grenade rolling under the door.

"Get down!"

"Grenade!"

Ryan heard a lot of frantic shouting, but in reality, none of the agents could react in time. The explosion came not a second later, followed by the door being blown off by it; this grenade killed within a small radius. Anyone else outside of it was filled with razor sharp, miniscule metal pieces of shrapnel. Confirmation of this came from agonizing yelling and screeching just outside of the door. It was near bloodcurdling, and Ryan didn't want to hear it at all. He'd been through so much that it nearly drove him crazy, but he kept his composure. He grabbed one of the loaded assault rifles and held it in his hands, then sitting up and aiming it over the desk.

Lucc watched what was going on outside of the room, and at least four of the 20 agents hadn't died, but were instead in an unbearable amount pain from the shard grenade. A few were writhing around on the ground from hundreds of metal shards that had pierced through their skin. 'Why do humans make such terrifying weaponry?' He thought to himself and saw about ten more agents heading toward the control room. Lucc let out a low growl again to tell Ryan and turned off his ability for now, he couldn't watch what went on through those walls anymore.

"I sure hope these rifles are gonna last." Ryan sighed and waited for any sign of movement, and as soon as he saw a few of the agents run into the room, he opened fire. A few bullets hit two in the chest area that had just made it past the door, and the last was taken care of by Aura. She had shot an aurora beam right at his chest which had burned an empty hole through it. "Good job! Keep at it. We aren't dying here…" Ryan sprayed a few more rounds at the doorway as the agents blind fired into the room from outside of it. "We need to get rid of them before they get any ideas!" Ryan remembered the two heatvapor grenades he found back in the first room they entered. "Thank you Paige, wouldn't have these without you." He grinned to himself before taking it out of his pocket, pulling the pin, and cooking it in his hand for a few seconds, he then tossed it across the room. Another explosion; this time airy as it disintegrated about five agents that were near the door, and some others that had been suffering from the previously thrown shard grenade.

Lucc turned his ability back on to see the five remaining agents fall back for now, but it wouldn't be permanent. He let Ryan know by momentarily walking out from behind the desk. "Finally...Paige, how are you feeling down there?" Ryan dropped the rifle and sat by her.

"I'm alive..." She tried sitting up, but to no avail as it only brought her more pain. "Ah…" Paige gently clutched her wounded area again.

"Take it easy, rest for now." He leaned down and brushed her hair out of her face while setting her back down.

Paige wanted to help though, she felt useless. "I'm sorry I can't help at all Ryan."

"Nonsense, you're helping me plenty." He replied quickly and took the glove off of her right hand, and then off of his hand as well, afterward gently holding her delicate hand with his.

"How?" She looked up at him while intertwining her fingers between his.

"Because, I won't let you die." He squeezed her hand gently and sighed out of exhaustion.

"I liked that aurora beam, your attacks deal heavy damage, Aura." Lucc nudged her a bit and glanced over at her.

"Glad I was able to impress my mate." She replied and playfully nudged him back.

"You always have." His tail slowly swayed from side to side a few times while he lovingly nuzzled his cheek against Aura's.

"I think we can get out of here now." Ryan said, and Lucc walked out from behind the desk again while watching the hallway. Ryan went to the computer that was next to the timepod with a rifle in hand. He used the mouse to wake the screen up.

"Ryan, Ryan, Ryan...you don't know when to quit, do you?" Jared stood in the empty door frame with a shotgun pointed at him. "Get away...from my computer, and drop the weapon." Jared's voice shook; he spoke in between breaths. He was deeply upset.

Ryan dropped it while turning around to face Jared.

Lucc was ready to flash Jared again, but looked over at his trainer as he began to speak.

"You think you're the only one who's over this? Do you know what I've been through? What you've put me through!? My life has been near hell ever since you wanted me dead!" Ryan returned the glare that Jared gave him, he was no longer afraid of the man behind timə.

"And I apologize for that Ryan, you weren't supposed to live through any of that. If you just - if you just would have died sooner, you would have been at peace. We both would be."

"No, this is why I won't let you be in charge of something so huge. You get people immediately killed when you feel the slightest bit of suspicion about them within yourself. You don't know how to reason...it's why you got Melissa killed, it's why you killed Jack, and it's why you tried so hard to get me killed. Yan was wrong, he said you were a bad man with good intention…but there is no good intention, is there? You only think of yourself Jared. You aren't fit to run the future."

Jared lowered his shotgun; his eyes began to water. "I wanted to save everyone Ryan. I truly did. The region's authority even worked with me as long as I was under close watch. One day, I found out where our future was going through constant study of almost every era. Humanity would suffer a great deal from war and natural disasters, as would pokémon. I couldn't just let that happen. After I found out, I hired hundreds of employees and told Melissa that it was to simply collect rare valuables from the future. That was all a cover up, a lie. I began building bases in various eras that I had thoroughly looked into, and pushed half of my employees over to them to build them in secret. Those eras were safe havens, and when the time came, I would have transported millions of innocents to those eras where I and my agents would care for them...but I couldn't have anyone find out about this, could I? Melissa began snooping around in my office, found my damn blueprints; threatened to rat me out if I didn't tell her what was really going on. I had no choice, you see, and with you...I was afraid you would spread what you and your pokémon had seen and knew. I couldn't be too safe…I admit that my paranoia took control of me... I truly am sorry Ryan." Jared wiped the tears away from his eyes and began to raise his shotgun again. "But... this doesn't mean I will throw away all that I've worked so very hard for. You still stand in my way."

Two gunshots were suddenly heard, and Jared fell over onto his back while desperately groaning out in pain. Ryan looked over at Paige weakly holding one of the rifles over the table that had been behind the desk. Ryan then quickly ran over and knocked the shotgun out of Jared's hands, then kneeled beside him. "I don't hate you Jared. In fact, I understand now. What you were originally doing wasn't wrong...what you became was. I can't let you govern anything Jared, especially the future, it would be a disaster." Ryan looked to his right side to see Lucc sitting next to him, and he placed his hand on Lucc's shoulder.

"Who will save everyone now Ryan? All that I did...was for nothing." More tears now began to well up in Jared's eyes.

"It was the best attempt at being a hero I've ever seen." Some time went by, and Jared took his last deep breath. A few moments of silence and disbelief that this fight finally and may be all be over ensued. Ryan looked down at Lucc and hugged him tightly. "Thank you for fighting by my side as much as you did Lucc. You're truly my best friend, companion and everything else." Ryan pulled away after a moment and wiped some tears from his own eyes, but they were tears of relief. He looked over at the doorway and saw a few agents watching them, but the agents didn't shoot.

Lucc stared ahead while wrapped up in his thoughts. He used to have a somewhat decent relationship with his trainer. Now, it went a lot deeper than that; he could feel it. His mind then shot back to Silva, and how she was so close to the end. That she could've been behind that desk with Aura and Paige. Silva didn't make it, but her death wouldn't ever be forgotten by Lucc, and it hadn't drifted away without its revenge.

Ryan stood up and walked over to Paige next. "So, you're the girl that just saved my life?" He grinned and hugged her above the waist so that her wounded area wasn't touched.

"And you must be the guy that saved me too many times to count." She giggled a bit, but stopped and winced as it only brought her more pain.

"We should get you to a hospital." Ryan carried her over to the timepod and noticed that he didn't have his keycard with him. He looked over at one of the agents by the doorframe. "Any of you have a keycard I can borrow?" Ryan asked, and at first they all blankly stared at him, but one soon took the keycard out of his pocket and went over to hand it to him. "Thanks," he used it to open the pod's door and gently set Paige inside of it, against the back wall. "Hop in, both of you." Ryan told Lucc and Aura; they gladly did. After Ryan handed the agent back his keycard, he stepped in as well and closed the door. "Alright, we'll drop you off first. Then we'll head back home." Ryan said to Aura and punched 3065 into the keyboard. "Luckily, we only have to flash freeze what goes back to a year that it never existed in." He looked down at the vaporeon before pulling the levers.


	45. Saying Goodbye

[Hanz Zimmer- Time] is a song that fits well while reading this chapter]

Now back in 3065, Ryan opened the pod's door and let both Lucc and Aura exit. He knew they'd want to say bye to each other, and he had no issue giving them that moment.

"So...are you done with this time travel business?" Aura sat in front of Lucc, right next to the pod and in the sand.

"I mean...the thought of going back to working this as a daily job sickens me."

"So...yes?"

"Mhm…" Lucc looked down at the soft terrain under him. Saying this could mean a lot of things; it hurt him deeply.

"Are you ever going to...come back?" She gazed at her partner intently, Aura did love him, more than ever as they'd gotten a lot closer recently.

"I-I don't know, I don't think it's up to me Aura...but either way, I'll love you, always." Lucc never had a problem with saying goodbye in the past, granted - he never really had to. But this time, it was already hitting him hard. "I don't want you to be lonely here again…" His eyes began to water, and he still refused to look up at Aura as he didn't want her to see this.

"Look at me Lucc." And he did, hesitantly, enough for her to see his tired eyes. "I'll be fine here no matter what, I always have been. We can keep eachother in our hearts and minds. I love you too." Aura gave off a small grin and went up to bury her face into his furry chest, she'd miss it.

"Ryan, what if you were to just let Lucc stay behind with her? Look at em, they're in love." Paige grinned at the cute sight while leaned up against the wall of the machine.

"I mean...I guess you're right." Ryan thought about how he would be ripping them away from each other, and leaned down by the pod's entrance. "Hey bud...so, if you'd like, I was thinking of giving you the option of staying behind in this era, I want you happy and you deserve to settle down." Ryan would miss Lucc just as much if he would never be able to see him again, that is if they shut down all pod functionality.

Lucc looked up at Ryan as he spoke, then back to Aura. It would be the biggest decision he would ever have to make in his life, and the fact that he was forced to decide between the two he was closest to made it worse.

"Lucc...no, that's your trainer." Aura felt like she was in the way, she didn't want to be the reason that separated him from who had raised and cared for him.

"And you're my mate…" Lucc would reply and felt his eyes begin to burn as the tears kept coming, he couldn't hold them back even he tried to.

"You don't belong in this era Lucc, you don't live here. You know me, and we fell in love...but that's who always cared for you, it's your true home." She explained to him, and Lucc sat there, staring ahead while he tried to calm himself enough to think.

He hadn't ever cried this much before, he rarely did as is. His glances would exchange from Aura, then back to Ryan a few times. "You're right Aura...y-you're right." He gave in while closing his eyes for a second.

"I know...now goodbye Lucc." Aura leaned up and gave him a few light kisses on his cheeks, and one more on his lips. "Go on." Aura nudged his shoulder with her cheek. If he stayed any longer, he could change his mind.

Lucc hesitantly and sluggishly hopped back into the pod, he turned and took one last look at his Aura before sitting down inside of it.

Ryan waved to the Vaporeon before closing the door and turned around to face Lucc. "You made a tough decision, and I know it'll be hard to get over, but if it means anything...I'm here for you, okay? I'm glad you're staying with me." Ryan hugged his pokémon tightly and wiped the wet areas from around his eyes. Afterward, he stood up and set the location back home.

"Aw...c'mere Lucc." Paige opened her arms for him and Lucc slowly made his way over to her. She pulled him into her lap and he curled up in it, his face slightly buried into the uninjured side of her stomach as he let out a few quiet whimpers. "Shh, it'll be okay, I promise." Paige slowly traced her fingers across the top of his head and around his pointy ears as the interior of the pod began to vibrate. It calmed him a bit, maybe because her touch was so gentle and feminine.

Ryan had entered the address of the hotel he'd previously stayed in again as the spawn point, it was the closest to a hospital that happened to be just a few blocks down the road from it. After arriving, he had to break up Paige and Lucc's comfort session in order to pick her up again. Her arms embraced his neck to ensure a grip as he held her and walked down the sidewalk with Lucc at his side.

The sun was slowly setting over the region, Ryan hadn't ever felt so happy to be back home more than he was now. He enjoyed the purple and orange colored sky, the buildings around him, and the occasional person or pokémon that he saw. He never thought he'd make it back to see home again. As he looked at the pokèmon that sat on porches and played with their trainers, Ryan was glad that he saved them from something. The war would come soon, but if only they knew what would have been in store for them if Jared was still alive.

In less than 15 minutes, they made it to the hospital; once Ryan brought her in, Paige was immediately taken into the Emergency Room while Ryan had to stay in the waiting room with Lucc and a few others.

He sat in a chair while Lucc laid in his trainer's lap. "Hope she'll be okay." Ryan thought out loud while he stroked up and down Lucc's back with his hand. He thought about everything that happened, the lives he took, the near death experiences, Jared finally...finally being stopped, which was still a disbelief to him, like accomplishing the impossible. He still couldn't help but think about whether or not the remaining bases would fall apart without him. Ryan thought about Davin, who'd lost his life in order to save their group. He thought about Silva, and how she could be sitting here with them right now, how Lucc darted after her right before she was disintegrated. It all hit him at once, but for now, he needed to rest while he could, they still had a few more things to do.


	46. Recovery

(Atis Frievalds- Stargazing... fits well while reading this chapter.)

After about an hour, a nurse had approached Ryan while he was in the waiting room and told him that Paige was in stable condition, but would be recovering for a while. Though he was still able to go see her and he asked to be taken to her room.

"Follow me, she isn't too far down." The nurse happily did so and took Ryan and Lucc down to her room. It was about three heavy doors down with a few turns along the way. "She's asleep right now, should be up soon though." And with that, the nurse left them alone after Ryan had thanked her.

He made sure that the door closed quietly behind her and walked up to her hospital bed in the dimly lit room, her steady breathing while she laid on her back relieved him, the monitor that showed him her active heart rate even more. Ryan gently took her left hand into his and held it while watching her sleep for a few moments. She always looked beautiful to him, the most when she slept.

Lucc had taken one of the two seats that were both by the door and against the wall while he watched his trainer. It made him miss Aura to the point where it would hurt his heart, but you couldn't flash freeze an entire living creature. There wasn't a way for the device's beam to reach through to freeze any organs yet; there probably never would be since Jared was dead.

Ryan brushed a few strands of Paige's brown hair out of her face and would allow her to rest. He then went and sat down in the chair next to Lucc's. "I don't know what I'll do after we finish this. I'll never go back to my family, and If I'm being honest, I won't get a job out here. It's not that easy anymore. I'm not up for it." Ryan leaned back and stared ahead at the wall while Lucc looked up at him. "And we also have a deadly war to look forward to in a few years, that'll be harsh." As Ryan thought out loud - though he wouldn't be if Lucc hadn't been sitting right next to him to listen. He also remembered that he was still probably wanted in this region for murder, a few of them in fact.

Almost an hour had gone by and Paige began to wake up. As soon as Ryan noticed movement from her, he got up and went over to the right side of her bed. He was the first thing she saw upon waking up.

"Hi," was all Paige could weakly say as she sleepily looked up at him.

It made Ryan grin because of how cute it was. "Hey, how are you feeling?"

"They stitched me up and did some quick surgery, no pain right now." She pulled up her white hospital gown enough to show him the closed wound.

"I was really worried about you, so glad you survived." He exhaled and looked away a bit after saying this, which Paige noticed.

"Something wrong?" She went on to ask.

"I don't think I can stay here Paige, not in this era." It was dangerous for him, he had to still be wanted for his crimes. Why would they just stop looking for him?

"Why not?" She gave Ryan a rather confused expression.

"Well, all of those people I killed, including two cops for good reason...I can't risk staying here. I think you'd be able to though."

"I'm going with you, I don't want to stay here in 2025. It's terrible now, and it's only going to get worse." She gave him a more serious glare, already catching on to what he was getting at it.

"Nothing you want to stay behind for?" Ryan wasn't trying to force her to stay, he was genuinely asking.

"My parents kind of let me go off on my own. I'll give them a call to warn them of certain events that will soon happen...but no. Not like I could ever be with anyone else anyway." Paige replied, her voice turning to a slight mumble with those last words.

"What do you mean?" Ryan heard it anyway and lowered the metal guard bar on the side of the bed before he sat down on it.

"If I were to ever meet someone else, I wouldn't be able to really be myself around them...everything that happened will always be seared into my mind. They'll show up in my nightmares. I know I'll be kind of messed up in the head forever, and I couldn't get comfort from anyone that didn't experience it with me. They wouldn't understand...and they would probably think I'm a bit crazy. You're the only one I trust Ryan, you were there through all of it. You saved my life plenty of times and we got out like you said we would. I love you...we can't just part ways...and if you think about it, It also applies to you too." What Paige said did make sense, and Ryan knew that she was right. He even felt the same way about it. "Where would you go anyway?" She added.

"We...and I've been thinking about it. When you're healed enough, we have to head out immediately, we'll talk more about it then." Ryan grinned and leaned down to lightly kiss her on her forehead. "Hungry?"

Paige nodded a bit and pressed the red button that was on the side of her bed to call the nurse. "Very, been a while since any of us have eaten...but I do hate hospital food." She suppressed her urge to giggle as it would probably bring her some unwanted pain.

"Who doesn't? At least it's better than nothing." Ryan quietly yawned while covering his mouth. He would need to get some rest before they left too.

"I'll just share what I get with you and Lucc."


	47. One More Time

It was the next day when Ryan opened his eyes, he must have fallen asleep last night next to Paige. He sat up slowly and saw Lucc curled up by the foot of the bed, asleep as well. They had to leave soon after Paige woke up, the longer Ryan stayed, the riskier it got for him. He couldn't have anyone even possibly telling the police of his current location. If he were to get caught, Ryan would definitely be jailed for a long time.

He quietly got off of the bed and went to go look out of the window that was by the right of the chairs. Barely any sunlight, just dark gray clouds covering the sky above. It would probably rain soon, not that it would hinder any progress, they just had to make it back to timə's building in this era which should be easy enough.

Once Paige was awake, and that didn't take too long once the rain and thunder started up. Ryan walked over to her from the window and sat down next to her again. The noise had also woken Lucc up, the stormy and dark weather didn't help bring up his current mood either, which happened to be a bit depressed at the time.

"Get enough rest?" Ryan asked her with a small grin.

"Yep, and I feel better." Paige would then slowly sit up on her bed to confirm that.

"Think you'll be able to leave today? I don't mean to rush you Paige, but staying here is playing with fire." He felt bad, Ryan would carry her to their destination again if he had to.

"No, I agree. We are leaving today, but how are we getting out of here?"

"There's a car rental up the street. We just won't be returning the car." Once they left this era and shut down the ability to time travel for good, there would no longer be any trace left of them.

"That'll work." Paige looked down and remembered that she was still wearing that stupid hospital gown. "Gonna need a change of clothes though…" It would be slightly embarrassing to walk outside in the rain while dressed the way she currently was.

"Right, I'll go ask about that. Be right back!" Ryan got up and exited the room to do just that.

"Doing any better Lucc?" Paige asked a few moments after Ryan had left.

Lucc looked over at her from the bottom of the bed, and he looked beat.

"Come on." Again, Paige reached her arms out to him and Lucc slowly walked over to her. "I know you feel lost, the two that you loved so much aren't here with you anymore. Maybe something can be worked out, you have quite the unique love story, can't let it just go to waste." She held both sides of his cheeks with her hands and grinned warmly.

It slightly touched Lucc's heart how much Paige cared and wanted to help him through how he felt.

And just after their touching moment, Ryan had walked through the door with folded clothes in his hand. "So they gave me a basic outfit for you...unless you want your old clothing back." He stood by the bed and glanced back out of the window. It was now raining harder than it was before, the quicker they left the better.

"No, I'll take these. Thank you." Paige said and got changed into what was a thin, white and blue striped shirt, along with white pants that seemed to be made from a cottony material. Her changing was a slow process since she was still healing, she also got into her boots and slipped on her gloves that Ryan had gotten back for her. With a sigh and some adjustment to her new outfit… "I'm ready," there was only a bit of pain felt when she would make any abrupt movement. Paige would have to move with caution.

Before they left, they had to talk to the nurse and a few others who recommended that Paige not leave so soon as they had to keep her under watch for a while longer. They also didn't know how risky the situation was, but the care was still appreciated. Ryan thanked them and told them that they really couldn't stay, he couldn't give them the true reason of course. He was just glad they hadn't pestered too much.

"It's cold out here, dealt with that enough recently." Paige shivered as a light breeze blew past them while they walked down the sidewalk. The rain had at least softened to a light drizzle.

"Here…" Ryan took off his black jacket and helped her put it on so she wouldn't have to move her upper body too much. He still had both of them on from when they were at Davin's house.

"Thank you." She grinned for a moment and walked by his side.

"You're welcome...and there's the rental place right up there." Ryan pointed a few more blocks down the road as they got closer.

Meanwhile, Lucc had been trailing right behind them, taking in what was left of their region. Half of the trainers that resided here were out of both places to live and stable jobs. The numbers constantly increased by the week; soon it would all go downhill. It made him wonder, would it have been better to let everything run its course? Or would it have been better to have stepped in and made a significant difference? Saving lives and such...but no, if Jared had gone through with his plans, it would have altered the future. Who knew if it would have been a good or bad change all around? It was a risk that should never be taken, and he believed that things should go as they normally would. No matter how unfortunate the outcome would be.


	48. 2088

(Danny Elfman- Finale... fits well while reading this chapter)

The drive back to that same dreadful building, the source of timə, put a dreadful feeling inside of all three of them. It wasn't without reason, it held a lot of pain and bad memories.

"Well, we're here again…" Ryan parked the gray coupé that they rented by the building's rear entrance and stepped out of it.

"Must have it under investigation." Paige said while looking at the bright yellow caution tape that had been stuck to the door.

"Ugh, Lucc. Mind scanning?" Ryan asked, it was a convenient ability that usually saved them from getting into a lot of potential and unecessary trouble.

Lucc did just that, and picked up no human heat signatures inside of the building. Maybe they left for the day - or just didn't get here yet to continue investigating. He shook his head and walked up to the back doors.

"Good, now let's make this quick." Ryan was able to easily push the doors open, the card reader must have been offline, which was fortunate for them.

"Huh...makes sense. The detectives and police wouldn't have keycards, wonder how they got in in the first place though." Paige followed behind Ryan while Lucc continued to scan, just to be sure.

After traversing through the silent corridors and the all too familiar rooms, the small group had finally arrived at Jared's office, his personal pod room right next to it.

Ryan slowly pushed open the door to Jared's office and saw that the body had been removed. Though the blood stain on the carpet where it used to be was still there. He closed it after a few seconds while Paige and Lucc watched, Ryan felt like he was leading, something that he was too afraid to do before.

Next, and lastly, was the pod room. Ryan opened the door and was relieved to see that nothing had been tampered with as far as he could tell. "Okay…" He whispered to himself, shoved his glove into his pocket and went over to the computer. Ryan had to enter a password to get in, and after a few attempts of getting it wrong - Paige standing by his right. It gave him a subtle hint in red lettering. 'Era. Base 1,' Was all that it read. Ryan stood still for a moment, his hand hovering over the keyboard before he entered 3065. It worked.

While he was doing this, Paige would slowly snake her arm around his waist to comfort him. It was the least she could do for them both.

Ryan searched through the file directory, and it took him a bit before he would finally get to the system's main folder directory. It wasn't encrypted either, maybe Jared never got around to doing so. All Ryan had to do now was press delete, he pushed the cursor forward across the screen, highlighted the file, and blankly stared at it.

He felt a pair of eyes on him, and he turned around to see Lucc staring up at him. Not one that begged, not even one of sadness, it was simply a stare. Ryan looked back at the screen; the option to erase it all was only a click away. They could then use what was left of the fading data to escape this era. "Paige, we can't do this…" He sighed and put his face in the palm of his hand for a moment.

"What is it?" She didn't want to upset him, because she was about to ask 'why not?'.

"Because we aren't done...Jared was only the beginning. The remaining bases won't just dismantle themselves, and deleting the system...it just can't be this easy! I bet they have backups." Ryan kneeled down, he knew it wasn't over, and as much as he wanted to be completely done with this, he had to be sure that no trace of timə was left.

"Ryan, what are you saying?" Paige felt sick to her stomach, she wasn't ready for anymore near death experiences.

"We can't let those bases thrive."

"I-I can't...I can't do anymore of that! We're barely getting a break as it is!" Her eyes shot over to the computer screen, it was tempting to press delete. It really was.

"We can get away from this for a while, we just can't put it on hold for too long." He looked up at her and stood back up.

"I don't know…" Paige had already been stabbed, nearly vaporized, imprisoned. She didn't want anything else added to that list.

"You don't have to come, you never had to..." His voice trailed off out of sudden irritation, and what he said hurt her.

"You're right, but I did, didn't I? Where would you be if I wasn't there with you through everything that happened? We gave each other hope..." The pain was blatantly heard in her tone, and Ryan looked down.

He could have retaliated, but would never do that to her. He was the one that mindlessly spouted off anyway. "I'm sorry…" He sincerely replied, feeling lost and empty himself.

"It's...it's okay." Paige took a few steps and slowly hugged him as tight as she could without it hurting her wounded area. "We shouldn't argue, I'm sorry too. I just need to think this through first...We both should. We can't just rush into the bases." She pulled away and looked over at the still pod.

"We'll take a break Paige, and I know just where to go." Ryan opened the pod's door using the computer's commands and stepped inside of it. After powering it on, he typed in 2088 onto the holographic keyboard. That was the city that Lucc had gotten his nanolens installed from. It was beautiful, and would definitely make a great temporary vacation spot - as long as they stayed inside at night.

Lucc was glad that the ability to time travel woul still be existent. It meant that the journey wasn't over just yet, and he would likely be able to see Aura again. Time travel was always a huge part of his life, and as much as he hated it sometimes, there were still moments and memories to treasure within each era he visited and explored that he held on dearly to. It was something that Lucc was nothing without. A permanent piece of him.

The remaining bases, five in total that were still standing, had no idea of the unstoppable force that would soon be coming to off them for good. But for now, the group of three would wind down and hide out for a good while. It was well deserved, and the unique bond that they shared would only grow stronger as time passed. The clock would tell their fate, but as long as it was decided while they were together, well, that would be just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end! This story was a lot of fun to work through, and thank you for reading it - especially through any errors!...no idea if this particular story will be continued, but I will next begin the sequel to my previous story: "Region of Corruption." (That one is on Fanfiction.com, but I will soon upload it here as well.)


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